Excuse me what?

[mamamia88]

Sorry but, what? If you try to install obs studio with apt on an arch system it will just tell you apt not found. Pretty big clue that you don't have apt. I'm honestly not sure why I'm watching these videos. It just seems like he's doing what alot of linux people do and pretending to know what he's talking about except he has a huge audience. Love you linus but, please stick to windows. 

[creesch]

You might want to respond in the topic for that video here

 

 

But just in case I am just going to post my response in there below as your entire response I think falls in this category 

 

Quote

The amount of people that clearly are not aware of their own knowledge level compared to that of people starting out on Linux with a blank slate is interesting to say the least. Someone in the youtube comments who was actually rather self aware put it rather aptly 

 

Quote

Watching these as a full time Linux user makes me realize I'm suffering from "the curse of knowledge". Every time a problem comes up I'm like "oh you can fix it with <insert command>, it's easy!"

 

But I often forget that my troubleshooting skills are way above those of the average user and simply writing a script myself to solve things isn't the way to do it for everyone.

 

All the stuff you do in Linux has been something you at some point had to learn and what many people in this threat consider "basic" knowledge is often already a step above what you can reasonable expect from someone to have. Not to mention that a lot of people also fail to factor in their existing knowledge they had as a starting Linux user. Yes of course things are slightly easier if you already were a developer so know your way around git(hub) and where a bash script is just something in a different language but something you can figure out. That doesn't mean it is the same for everyone who starts using Linux. 

 

To stick to the discussion about github. Well yes, there technically is a download button for repositories but that downloads the entire repository as that is how it is intended to be used. You can also go to a file and then click "raw" which gets you the actual file you can download (I believe you can also right click the raw button and right click from there). But knowing those steps actually does require pre-existing knowledge about how GitHub works and what git in general is. If you are not a developer you will not have that knowledge. 

 

People can argue that there should be a more straightforward download button on GitHub for individual files but that completely ignores the larger issue at play. 

Which is that user scripts hosted on github that require you to fetch those scripts without further instructions aren't the sort of scripts you should want to use in the first place. 

 

I know many people turn there in desperation for stuff like the goXLR and while that isn't unreasonable the sort of scripts like the one Linus came across really are nothing more than a solution hacked together by a developer who decided to share their work with other technically inclined people. If you are lucky that is, often enough they are a mess of hacked together snippets. 

 

These scripts haven't been vetted by any repository maintainer, don't have a large user base who went over them, maybe don't have an update mechanism build in and often don't really get updated at all. The latter two meaning that any user who has no idea what they are doing doesn't have a straightforward way of updating to newer versions of the script (run it again? Might work, might break stuff as the previous version isn't properly cleaned), doesn't get notified about possible updates and when stuff eventually breaks down due to a dependency changing through a distro update they might find that there isn't even an updated solution available. 

 

People often blindly refer these scripts to new users who rightfully (like Linus) get confused but that is really because they should not be used by new users as you should be able to at least look into them and verify what they do. I know many "advanced" linux users who rarely do that either but frankly those are also the sort of people I see distro hopping a ton and barely ever having a stable desktop environment for more than a few months.

Frankly put, even though he benefitted from the user script being made Linus is not the user group that user script was likely targeted at. Which basically means that Linus has a point. If the script is actually be intended to be used by a wider audience it still very much proofs the point as it very much is failing to do so. 

Incidentally the instructions for the installation have since been updated to wget the script from the command line to avoid the issue Linus had. Ironically the script doesn't check for the presence of git which is required as the install script clones the repo. 

 

And once again, people shouldn't need to resort to using random shell scripts from the internet to get their basic stuff working. The people who I see ranting about random executables that can't be vetted are largely missing the point. The point being that to get Windows in a state where you can use it in a stable manner and game on it with the use of all your peripherals doesn't require you to do so for the most case. Yes you might need to download the software from the manufacture of some peripherals but that is not in the same ballpark as downloading a sketchy exe from a random website.  

 

Frankly the only scenario where I think it is acceptable for new users to run shell scripts in is if it is a script that sets up a PPA (assuming a ubuntu based distro) and install through there or if they set up a product that can self update. And even that I would consider edge cases that shouldn't be needed for a good base experience. 

 

If you want a stable experience and to run Linux on more than basic hardware and do more than some browsing and light office work Linux really for a large part is only for developers or the more technically inclined people. That or (like Linus also pointed out) you need to be willing to dive into the technical details, learn about it and accept that initially you might need to reinstall from time to time. Because the Pop!_OS experience Linus had isn't unique either, when you first start out with Linux it is very easy to break things without knowing what it is you did exactly and how to revert it. Certainly with the amount of mixed information out there (another can of worms). Which is why I am also willing to bet that the majority user groups of Linux are basically developers (or something in a related area) or relatively young enthusiasts like students with a lot of time on their hands to mess with their OS and figure it out (who might be developers later on).

 

Which I think is very much a reasonable thing to conclude. Which is why I don't think it is reasonable that many Linux enthousiasts are getting dismissive and overly aggressive when this is pointed out as at the very least it is just a tone deaf reaction to a real situation and at worse is just detrimental to the adoption of Linux in general. Because it frankly puts off people that might be willing to try Linux and actually could have a good experience given the right support. And honestly, saying that Linux is mostly for developers (or people with similar technical backgrounds or interests) isn't a judgement on the amount of amazing work that already has been put into Linux on the desktop. It simply is a reflection on the current state of some aspects of that experience. If most users are technically inclined then naturally you do get documentation more geared towards those users and experiences geared towards those users. If then the goal is to make Linux appeal to a broader audience it is actually productive to be aware of that bias as a pain point in that regard. 

 

And to be fair, there are many many people within the Linux community who are aware of these biases and do amazing work in support roles and making the software experience better in general. So obviously my rambling above isn't aimed at those people  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tl;dr is pretty much that you are very much falling for the curse of knowledge trap mentioned in the quote. Yeah of course to you it is obvious that different distros have different package managers with different commands. But that is knowledge you learned at some point, you most certainly were not born with it. You might have known before you tried Linux because you stumbled upon a good resource when doing your research that did explain it in detail but not everyone starts out using Linux with that knowledge. 

In fact, it is much more likely that even if people did some research beforehand they would only know about APT considering how much of a marketshare Ubuntu and ubuntu based distros have. So yeah for you it makes sense, but you are also the sort of person that is being dismissive towards new users as you have forgotten what actual starting knowledge for new users can be. 

[AbydosOne]

17 minutes ago, mamamia88 said:

Sorry but, what? If you try to install obs studio with apt on an arch system it will just tell you apt not found. Pretty big clue that you don't have apt. I'm honestly not sure why I'm watching these videos. It just seems like he's doing what alot of linux people do and pretending to know what he's talking about except he has a huge audience. Love you linus but, please stick to windows. 

Congratulations, you've demonstrated Linus' point about the Linux community being condescending whenever someone doesn't know how to do something.

[mamamia88]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

Congratulations, you've demonstrated Linus' point about the Linux community being condescending whenever someone doesn't know how to do something.

Oh come on. you can't just put bullshit that's just wrong into a video with millions of views and expect people not to call you out on it. His tone is incredibly condecending as well. Like that github page he's referencing has 3 lines of text right under the "download and execute the script" that does exactly that but, he doesn't even read that or acknowledge it. 

[Yebi]

The entire point of the entire challenge is the exact opposite of pretending to know what they're talking about

[mamamia88]

7 minutes ago, creesch said:

You might want to respond in the topic for that video here

 

 

But just in case I am just going to post my response in there below as your entire response I think falls in this category 

 

 

The tl;dr is pretty much that you are very much falling for the curse of knowledge trap mentioned in the quote. Yeah of course to you it is obvious that different distros have different package managers with different commands. But that is knowledge you learned at some point, you most certainly were not born with it. You might have known before you tried Linux because you stumbled upon a good resource when doing your research that did explain it in detail but not everyone starts out using Linux with that knowledge. 

In fact, it is much more likely that even if people did some research beforehand they would only know about APT considering how much of a marketshare Ubuntu and ubuntu based distros have. So yeah for you it makes sense, but you are also the sort of person that is being dismissive towards new users as you have forgotten what actual starting knowledge for new users can be. 

It's knowlegde you would have learned within an hour of installing the system most likely because you would need to install something. Yes yes i know everybody doesn't know everything but, learning pacman -S instead of apt install is hardly a dealbreaker. But, in no way does arch try to install dependedincies for apt. That's just misinformation. It will just fail to run and you will be like "oh i should use pacman." or google obs arch and find this https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/obs-studio/ and use pacman to install it. Really the same thing with a different command. And you only need to learn it once. 

 

[mamamia88]

2 minutes ago, Yebi said:

The entire point of the entire challenge is the exact opposite of pretending to know what they're talking about

Yes and report what you learned. But, you shouldn't just report inaccurate data to millions of people. In no way does manjaro try to install dependencies for apt when you try to install something with apt. It will just tell you command not found. Which of course it won't be it's arch. If you simply googled "how to install obs on arch" you'd get https://obsproject.com/wiki/install-instructions#arch-linux-installation-unofficial and have the app installed in 30 seconds. Which is about as easy if not easier than installing software on windows or mac. 

[creesch]

29 minutes ago, mamamia88 said:

It's knowlegde you would have learned within an hour of installing the system most likely because you would need to install something. Yes yes i know everybody doesn't know everything but, learning pacman -S instead of apt install is hardly a dealbreaker. But, in no way does arch try to install dependedincies for apt. That's just misinformation. It will just fail to run and you will be like "oh i should use pacman." or google obs arch and find this https://archlinux.org/packages/community/x86_64/obs-studio/ and use pacman to install it. Really the same thing with a different command. And you only need to learn it once. 

 

 

Are we trying to have a discussion about this or are you set on just ranting? This is not me being snarky but an honest question as you were quick to respond with the sort of response I actually did describe in detail in the quoted part as I already commented on it in the main thread. Not to mention that your response is actually the sort of thing I am trying to point out as you are forgetting (or ignoring if I am being less charitable) several things: 

 

• A beginner is using manjaro so would search for that more likely than arch. Before you go on a tangent that this is stupid, Manajaro doesn't clearly label on their site that it is arch based. 
• More likely a beginner might google "installing obs on Linux" not realizing there is that much of a difference between distros as many guides mostly go into the looks and such. 
• This brings me into the modern SEO invested search eco system where people need to be luckily to across factual correct information. Remember these people have no prior knowledge they can use to filter the bullshit out. 
• Many many distro guides and intro guides don't actually explain in detail the differences of package managers and such. Many do as well but if someone knows really depends on what information they came across, see my previous point.
• Based on the above you now have someone who googled how to install OBS, found instructions that clearly not work and is left confused until they figure it out. Which Linus actually did eventually but heh probably confused some things and did remember it slightly differently from what he is telling. Because yeah, it doesn't try to install apt you are right about that bit, but who knows what guide he found which might have included some extra bits he forgot to write down. 
• As far as your other point goes, it is nice that you point to the right documentation but have you had a look at the actual download page of OBS? You know the more likely page people wil land on? It only mentions Ubuntu with no link to your page, meaning that even if people do it "correctly" they are likely to resort to google again which doesn't guarantee that they will find the page you linked due to SEO fuckery. 
  

 

So once again I arrive at my previous point that many Linux users are really not aware of how much knowledge they take for granted isn't actually that obvious and straightforward. Yeah, people that are determined will eventually figure it out but that is exactly my bigger point. Which I am not going to repeat as I already quoted it from the other thread in my previous reply. So I wholeheartedly invite you to go back and actually read what I quoted as I do have a sneaking suspicion you didn't do so initially. 

 

[finest feck fips]

On 11/24/2021 at 8:57 AM, creesch said:

You might want to respond in the topic for that video here

 

 

But just in case I am just going to post my response in there below as your entire response I think falls in this category 

 

 

The tl;dr is pretty much that you are very much falling for the curse of knowledge trap mentioned in the quote. Yeah of course to you it is obvious that different distros have different package managers with different commands. But that is knowledge you learned at some point, you most certainly were not born with it. You might have known before you tried Linux because you stumbled upon a good resource when doing your research that did explain it in detail but not everyone starts out using Linux with that knowledge. 

In fact, it is much more likely that even if people did some research beforehand they would only know about APT considering how much of a marketshare Ubuntu and ubuntu based distros have. So yeah for you it makes sense, but you are also the sort of person that is being dismissive towards new users as you have forgotten what actual starting knowledge for new users can be. 

(lmk if you mind me following you here, since our discussion has been a little bit combative so far. I'm trying to catch up on your earlier posts in the other thread, since I thought your bit about the curse of knowledge was good and I'd been meaning to reply)

The issue here that the OP is raising is not (I think) just that Linus didn't know his system didn't have APT— it's that in the final video, he claimed something which makes no sense and is probably not true: that running apt-get on his system caused the system to ‘try to install some dependency for apt and fail over and over’, which almost certainly did not happen.

My guess is that that's Linus' erroneous interpretation of the message

apt-get: command not found

or some other messages.

It's frustrating that he didn't include footage of whatever that was.

[creesch]

2 minutes ago, finest feck fips said:

(lmk if you mind me following you here, since our discussion has been a little bit combative so far. I'm trying to catch up on your earlier posts in the other thread, since I thought your bit about the curse of knowledge was good and I'd been meaning to reply)

The issue here that the OP is raising is not (I think) just that Linus didn't know his system didn't have APT— it's that in the final video, he claimed something which makes no sense and is probably not true: that running apt-get on his system caused the system to ‘try to install some dependency for apt and fail over and over’, which almost certainly did not happen.

My guess is that that's Linus' erroneous interpretation of the message

apt-get: command not found

or some other messages.

It's frustrating that he didn't include footage of whatever that was.

It's fine you post here, I linked it in the other thread anyway. 

 

I agree that the claim is a bit odd and it would have helped in determining what actually happened if he had included actual footage of what was on the screen. At the same time is it the perfect example of any new user experience on Linux as it is pretty easy to get overwhelmed by all the information and misinterpret a thing or two. More importantly I don't think it invalidates the general points of the video in the way some people make it out to be exactly because of that. Put more directly, it still reflects the experience of someone trying out Linux for the first time with the goal of also wanting to game. 

[finest feck fips]

18 minutes ago, creesch said:

At the same time is it the perfect example of any new user experience on Linux as it is pretty easy to get overwhelmed by all the information and misinterpret a thing or two.

The reports of such misapprehended bad experiences also pile up and turn into rumors that cause even more problems for newbies and for the whole community, too. A new user encountering a very real problem often has a totally wrong idea of exactly what it is that has gone wrong, and then they go on (sometimes even after they gain experience and knowledge that would allow them to really understand what happened if they encountered the same issue again in the future) to tell and re-tell the tale of their problem with this or that piece of software all across the net.

And so you end up in this situation where

• many people post misinformation about issues on Linux online
• those users' particular stories get dismissed by more advanced users who read the details and think ‘lol that's nonsense’ or maybe even realize ‘what you claim happened is not actually possible’
• the people who posted their half-invented assessments of their half-remembered bad experiences feel invalidated
• the experienced users who know those stories aren't quite right come across as ‘toxic’
• newbies are nonetheless influenced by the inaccurate experience reports and may avoid software for bugs that don't exist, have been fixed, or don't apply to their use case
• nobody reading the thread can actually tell what the bug/issue/problem encountered by the misapprehending once-noob actually was

and basically everyone loses.

[18358414]

Don't know what error message Linus specifically got, 'nor do I know what packages he had installed when he tried running 'apt get' so I can't say whether there was an autocompletion (eg: pkgfile) tool trying to "help", but you can install apt on arch via the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/apt

 

But it doesn't even have to search aur; here's what pkgfile's 'command-not-found.bash' hook returns when you just type 'apt':

 

apt may be found in the following packages:
   extra/jdk7-openjdk 7.u261_2.6.22-1     /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk/bin/apt

If I didn't already know that this wasn't the debian package manager, I might reasonably assume that installing this "dependency" would provide 'apt'. 

[Alexeygridnev1993]

43 minutes ago, Yuri Fury said:

Don't know what error message Linus specifically got, 'nor do I know what packages he had installed when he tried running 'apt get' so I can't say whether there was an autocompletion (eg: pkgfile) tool trying to "help", but you can install apt on arch via the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/apt

 

But it doesn't even have to search aur; here's what pkgfile's 'command-not-found.bash' hook returns when you just type 'apt':

 

apt may be found in the following packages:
   extra/jdk7-openjdk 7.u261_2.6.22-1     /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk/bin/apt

If I didn't already know that this wasn't the debian package manager, I might reasonably assume that installing this "dependency" would provide 'apt'. 

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. I was also surprised when Linus said that the terminal suggested him to install "apt dependencies" when he tried to install OBS-Studio with apt on Manjaro.

 

And to the OP: you must have really good grounds for accusing a person of blatantly lying. As you can see, there is indeed an innocent explanation which sounds way more plausible than "Linus makes up some random BS about Linux to tarnish its reputation".

[mamamia88]

14 hours ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. I was also surprised when Linus said that the terminal suggested him to install "apt dependencies" when he tried to install OBS-Studio with apt on Manjaro.

 

And to the OP: you must have really good grounds for accusing a person of blatantly lying. As you can see, there is indeed an innocent explanation which sounds way more plausible than "Linus makes up some random BS about Linux to tarnish its reputation".

This is what happens when you try to apt-get install obs-studio on a manjaro system. It tells you command not found because of course it isn't. Commands don't try to hold your hand. They look in the directory usually /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin for the command you're trying to run and if they aren't found they tell you "command not found" and then you have to install it yourself if available or give up. Under no circumstances will it try to fetch apt dependencies on an arch based system. I don't blame him for trying apt-get i mean he did just come from pop-os. But, at the same time please at least fact check your videos before putting them in front of millions of people. Real world scenario he googles "apt-get command not found manjaro" and quickly realizes arch doesn't use apt feels like a dumbass for 30 seconds and continues with pacman. Instead he just sprouted misinformation to millions of potential linux users. 

 

[creesch]

On 11/26/2021 at 4:06 PM, mamamia88 said:

This is what happens when you try to apt-get install obs-studio on a manjaro system. It tells you command not found because of course it isn't. Commands don't try to hold your hand. They look in the directory usually /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin for the command you're trying to run and if they aren't found they tell you "command not found" and then you have to install it yourself if available or give up. Under no circumstances will it try to fetch apt dependencies on an arch based system. I don't blame him for trying apt-get i mean he did just come from pop-os. But, at the same time please at least fact check your videos before putting them in front of millions of people. Real world scenario he googles "apt-get command not found manjaro" and quickly realizes arch doesn't use apt feels like a dumbass for 30 seconds and continues with pacman. Instead he just sprouted misinformation to millions of potential linux users. 

 

 

 

That's nice, but depending on what else he already had installed that is not necessarily what always happens as someone points out here. Anyway I feel like you are entrenched waaaay to much to actually even give any consideration to even the slightest possibility that some of the experience might be confusing for new users. 

[finest feck fips]

I saw someone on YouTube suggest that maybe Linus somehow invoked yes, and mistakenly believed that the repeated output he then saw belonged to apt-get.

Or maybe he just doesn't know how to read bash's command-not-found output, and ran sudo apt-get install obs-studio over and over. It actually is kind of confusing how it begins with the command that is not present; it could make you think that the command which has not been found is the one producing the output. Bash and sudo give more confusing output than more modern, user-friendly shells do.

In a root shell, Fish shell handles this a bit better:

# apt-get install obs-studio
fish: Unknown command: apt-get

So does ZSH:

# apt-get install obs-studio
zsh: command not found: apt-get

 

but Bash?

# apt-get install obs-studio
bash: apt-get: command not found

 

A command-not-found handler would have probably made it clear to Linus that APT simply was not present, but he might have then just gone ahead and tried to install it using the suggested pacman command. But if you try to use apt on a system that doesn't actually use it for package management, the error message you get still doesn't explain to you that different distros use different package managers:

# apt-get install obs-studio
E: Unable to determine a suitable packaging system type

This is a type of mistake we should expect new users to make. Aliases that run the correct equivalents (like openSUSE puts in place) or aliases that show you the manual page for the correct command (like Garuda puts in place) seem like okay-ish ways to make such mistakes less painful for new users.

Personally I'd rather see a sophisticated CNF handler that works with sudo and tells you the kind of thing Linus suggested he'd rather have seen, like

apt-get is a package management tool for other operating systems, not this one.
See the manual on the package management tool for Manjaro by running the
command:

    man pacman

(If you'd like to make apt-get available on this system for development
purposes, run "sudo pacman -S apt".)

 

[maplepants]

14 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

Personally I'd rather see a sophisticated CNF handler that works with sudo and tells you the kind of thing Linus suggested he'd rather have seen, like

I get the impulse here, but I don't know if we should create custom error messages like this. There are many common programs that users might be used to being installed on one distro, and are absent on another. Should we add them all?

 

Linus' mistake is a perfectly reasonable mistake for a brand new linux distro who's doing some distro hopping. Knowing whether something is a Linux thing, or just a thing for the distro you're using takes time. I think we just have to expect that new users are going to make mistakes like this, and then community members like us just have be nice about it.

[finest feck fips]

8 hours ago, maplepants said:

I get the impulse here, but I don't know if we should create custom error messages like this. There are many common programs that users might be used to being installed on one distro, and are absent on another. Should we add them all?

Don't most distros have CNF handlers that support basically every executable in the package repositories anyway? I don't see how adding some extra information for commands that have preferred equivalents on a specific distro could be a bad thing.

I do understand that it's a lot of work and might not be sensible to prioritize, but would you close a PR that added such documentation to the default CNF handler for a distro you use?

 

8 hours ago, maplepants said:

Linus' mistake is a perfectly reasonable mistake for a brand new linux [user] who's doing some distro hopping. Knowing whether something is a Linux thing, or just a thing for the distro you're using takes time. I think we just have to expect that new users are going to make mistakes like this, and then community members like us just have be nice about it.

Why would you just leave explaining this as a chore for existing community members forever when you could document the matter and automate directing users toward the documentation? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work, and if your distro's community is small enough, a recipe for burnout.

[maplepants]

15 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

would you close a PR that added such documentation to the default CNF handler for a distro you use?

No, I wouldn't close a PR like that. I haven't actually been heavily involved in handling PRs for a Linux distro, so my opinions here aren't super firm. But I wouldn't put much priority into something like this. 

 

15 hours ago, finest feck fips said:

Why would you just leave explaining this as a chore for existing community members forever when you could document the matter and automate directing users toward the documentation? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work, and if your distro's community is small enough, a recipe for burnout.

Linux, especially desktop Linux, lives and dies by its community. In the server world, first time users are usually helped out by their co-workers or fellow students. But for desktop users, they're usually relying on enthusiastic Linux users to help them out, or their local LUG in the olden days of before March 2020. 

 

In my experience with first time users, they generally don't read or fully grasp error messages which bash gives out. They're flustered, and even sending them to the pacman man pages probably wouldn't help. Since the bash error handling is fine for a more experienced user, and a new user is likely to get nervous and reach out for help anyway, I'm skeptical that this is really worth much effort.

 

For many years, I've answered the same kinds of questions from new users about "apt" vs "apt-get", or how to change their editor after they've accidentally selected the wrong one, what to do if they tried to add themselves to the docker group but the group didn't exist, and many other common newbie problems. It's just a normal part of life in the community and is totally fine. Especially because many newbie questions often give you an opportunity to help somebody deal with a problem they've got now, and reduce the risk of future problems.