Comment by gtsop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gtsop | Hacker News Reader

I generally agree.

A point on Linus' videos though: his criticism is objectively not fair to the community.

I have been using linux for everything (work/gaming/devops etc) for over 7 years now. To this date I still stumble uppon simple issues that a normal user would probably never figute out how to solve. Linus is right in this regard, there is waaay to go, linux distros are not yet plug and play for normies.

However, and this is my problem with Linus' criticism: He has taken an existing subset of the people in the linux community (toxic gatekeepets who will also claim limux is noobie friendly) and he is replying to the whole community in frustration, as if we all are these people. So the thousands of volunteered effort, delivered for free to all of us, gets a slap from Linus because some specific people set some arbitrarily high expectations. He actually disclaims this fact, but I don't buy the disclaimer.

It is not polite/fair to say "this sucks, the other sucks, X thing is horrible" when people have volunteered so much free work to get it to this state.

For that reason, I am annoyed at his take on the challenge. I see luke's stance as waay more appropriate.

I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to this wonderful ecosystem. Yes, there is way to go.

I recommend checking out Linus's WAN-Show videos, they discuss it there with more context and nuance, something which the shorter cut videos can't do that well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3QFw2BEcw&t=3587s [timestamp: 59:47]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MAlgKdsdvg&t=1820s [timestamp: 30:20]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0boUNc1JOg&t=3148s [timestamp: 52:28]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9PcNrhiMUc&t=2292s [timestamp: 38:12]

Good resource. I have actually been watching those as they came out. It still gives me a bitter taste on the challenge videos. Most probably the reason for it is that linus was being frustrated at the time of filming the episodes but was calmer and more thoughtful while doing the wan shows.

Good point. I believe he mentioned something about doing an additional video where he wants to put the whole challenge into context, by comparing it to Windows from the point of view of a novice user.

Oh so he's only pretending to be one of the people who know just enough to be dangerous while expecting everything new to have zero learning curve and live up to all the hype?

I don't even know if that raises or lowers my opinion of their content.

I don't think I get your point exactly. The point of this challenge was to show how an average Windows gamer would fare if they tried to use Linux for gaming(without having prior knowledge).

Yeah, it's not like I don't get their angle. It's valid, drove a lot of engagement with their content, and I can respect the commitment to the bit. But at the same time I just see a single point belabored over and over again instead of really digging into anything really interesting.

I can't predict how their series will continue, but I think they've missed a massive opportunity to use the same premise and display just a little bit more self-awareness about how people experience different levels of software skill (or graduated steps of competence in any endeavor, really).

I thought for a few seconds that such a change could only help the content, but after snapping out of it I realized: no, that would only give it appeal to me. Of course it would hurt the content overall. This content is bait for people who want to laugh/facepalm at linux masochists and people who want to laugh/faceplam at a noob struggling.

> just a little bit more self-awareness about how people experience different levels of software skill (or graduated steps of competence in any endeavor, really).

They show more of this in the WAN show discussions, but I think you are right that a lot of people would find such a conversation boring. So, I can't really blame them for seperating this into the show format.

I was very shocked after watching the first and second Linux challenge videos. In the third video Linus uploaded yesterday[0], it seemed like he was being a lot more diplomatic, and distinguished between a small number of toxic gatekeepers vs. the wider community and their positive contributions.

[0] https://youtu.be/TtsglXhbxno

> Linus is right in this regard, there is waaay to go, linux distros are not yet plug and play for normies.

Really depends on the hardware and the use case. When using completely standard hardware for Web and a bit Office the installation is very easy. Seen it myself how someone who never used Linux and is just average with Computers installed Ubuntu and it just worked. But yes, something as simple as a Webcam can make things very difficult.

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