Clarification: Just making fun of people(including myself) who watch shitty videos instead of official documentation.

  • thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    682·
    26 days ago

    Man pages are for people who already know a lot about Linux and understand all the nuances and understanding of Linux

    Even after using Linux for many many years I still don’t understand wtf nearly all man pages mean. It’s like a fucking codex. It needs to be simplified but not to the extreme where it doesn’t give you information you need to understand it.

    Tbh that’s most of Linux, not designed for average people, designed by Linux users who think that all others should know everything about Linux.

    • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
      7·
      25 days ago

      l must be using man pages very differently from you. To me they are mostly the easy reference to check the available flags for a command, and sometimes the reference on available config file entries, e.g. ssh_config(5)

      For those things I was using them quite soon when I started using Linux, because it’s quicker than googleing every time if you just need one flag or one option name. For more complex things, like tar-and-gzip in one which needs like four, I still google though.

      Probably there are very complicated ones too, the ones explaining subsystems or APIs of the kernel, but those I don’t need as a user.

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        5·
        25 days ago

        I don’t get it either. I can see how you’re getting confused if you end up in section 2 or 3 of the manpages or with the kernel calls. But that’s not what a beginner is looking for. The manpages for the user commands are pretty alright. Sometimes even excellent.

    • InstallGentoo@lemmy.zip
      2·
      25 days ago

      It depends on who writes them, I guess. More “modern” software come with pretty good and concise manpages, meanwhile stuff like the coreutils still have manpages that feel like an incomprehensible mess.

  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
    39·
    25 days ago

    You ask someone for instructions

    They send you some bullshit 10 minutes long video

    Now instead of ctrl+f or skimming the article and jumping where you want to go you need to jump around in a video

    REEEE

  • Silverchase@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    28·
    26 days ago

    Free tech tip: https://cht.sh/ serves practical, usage-focused help on common command-line tasks. You can visit the website, or even better, curl for what you want.

    $ curl cht.sh/touch

    gets you this:

     cheat:touch 
# To change a file's modification time:
touch -d <time> <file>
touch -d 12am <file>
touch -d "yesterday 6am" <file>
touch -d "2 days ago 10:00" <file>
touch -d "tomorrow 04:00" <file>

# To put the timestamp of a file on another:
touch -r <refrence-file> <target-file>

    Append with ~ and a word to show only help containing that word:

    $ curl cht.sh/zstd~compress

    Result:

     tldr:zstd 
# zstd
# Compress or decompress files with Zstandard compression.
# More information: <https://github.com/facebook/zstd>.

# Decompress a file:
zstd -d path/to/file.zst

# Decompress to `stdout`:
zstd -dc path/to/file.zst

# Compress a file specifying the compression level, where 1=fastest, 19=slowest and 3=default:
zstd -level path/to/file

# Unlock higher compression levels (up to 22) using more memory (both for compression and decompression):
zstd --ultra -level path/to/file

    For more usage tips, curl cht.sh/:help.

  • Noxy@pawb.socialEnglish
    281·
    25 days ago

    Man pages fucking suck, and I say that having been working with linux full time professionally for 11 years.

    The best ones have plenty of examples.

    • forrgott@lemm.ee
      6·
      26 days ago

      Dude. Warn me before saying something like that. I’m too high for this… Lol

    • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
      4·
      26 days ago

      I do that occasionally when.I don’t want to lose/scroll back to the output currently in my terminal (or I want to refer to it while reading the manpage)

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
    18·
    25 days ago

    I really like the man pages for commands that have examples of some common usage at the bottom, that gets you kickstarted and you can just adapt your own command from the example.

  • bluewing@lemm.ee
    81·
    25 days ago

    After many years of tiptoeing through the distros, from RedHat 5 and Mandrake6 to Slack to Gentoo and now Fedora 41. The last thing I want anymore is to need to go RTFM.

    I don’t want to open a terminal to compile anything, (I got stacks of tee shirts), or goggle, (yes goggle), to make things work. I’m too old for this crap and I don’t have that much longer to live wasting my short time remaining staring at a terminal and reading man pages. Distros and Linux by extension should “just work” in 2025. And thankfully they do-- most of the time.

    You want to be a Sysadmin and a cmd line commando, have at it. I’m peacing out.

    Now if only GUIs could be called and worked telepathically. Or better yet, fix any problems before they happen without me even knowing about it.

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
      2·
      25 days ago

      That’s one of the reasons why I prefer to run older, enterprise hardware.

      There’s a good chance, everything has been configured before and most distros work just fine without any tweaking.

      I want a stable platform to work on, not another hobby.