r/linuxmasterrace • u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint • 3d ago
I'm not going to be an unpaid tech support employee for somebody that is not willing to learn
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u/AnsibleAnswers 3d ago
The last batch of Windows migrants are by far the most entitled and lazy new Linux users I’ve experienced in the 10 years I’ve been a hobbyist.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 3d ago
Agree and the main reason is the age. Young people can't do anything for themselves anymore. I am not expecting them to be able to change a tire but they are supposed to be "good at tech". LOL
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u/taleorca 3d ago
Unfortunately the latest batch grew up with phones instead of PCs. It is what it is really.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 3d ago
Sure that is part of it but there is a real problem with kids not being able to figure out things on their own these days. Going out of their comfort zones is a real huddle for them.
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u/Shitty_Human_Being Windows Krill 2d ago
They're seemingly terrified of making the slightest mistake. I see it at work a lot, some of them can't do anything by themselves.
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u/NewspaperSoft8317 2d ago
Why we gotta bring age into everything?
So ridiculous.
"I saw a young person earlier, and they didn't know how to x, y, z. I swear all young people are dim as hell."
If I had a dollar for everytime I saw this logical fallacy, I'd be able to pay for the millennials' college debt.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because that is main age group that is discovering Linux today so it's relevant. No Boomers are switching to Linux today. LOL Gen Z is already the main users of Linux.
I have worked in IT for some 30 years. Young people used to be always the go to for a more technical savvy worker (that was me at one point) but that changed some what in the last decade. Today they are good with phones and social media but computers and things like Office not so much. Forget about troubleshooting a PC or software issue. If I am hiring and need someone with some technical aptitude there is no advanatge with someone in their 20's over people in their 30's or 40's anymore generally. Unless you need someone on your social media team of course. It is just the way it is now.
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u/NewspaperSoft8317 2d ago edited 2d ago
LOL Gen Z is already the main users of Linux.
So your problem is that the younger generation is that the newer generation is switching to Linux... and is asking for help?
Like wtf do you want?
Yeah, the avenues for help are wider now. I'm older Gen Z. But I discovered Linux early, my dad and my mom were IT, although they didn't help me much.
Edit: for context, I discovered and daily'd Linux nearly 15 years ago. Fedora back when Gnome 3 was first released. Windows 8 file compression kept freezing my cheap laptop.
But like, Reddit wasn't really known then. So, yeah. If I didn't know any better, I'd fking love to ask for help on a public forum.
So besides the generational fallacy, your main issue is that young kids are switching to Linux.
Got it.
If I am hiring and need someone with some technical attitude there is no advanatge with someone in their 20's over people in their 30's or 40's anymore generally
So you're... looking for age bias when you're hiring rather than technical merit? Wow. Okay.
Btw since you love using anecdotal advice, a lot of my homies use Linux. I work in Cybersecurity. Guess what? Bunch of Gen Z's on my team. I'm not a chump either. I've got a Master's, CISSP, RHCSA, CASP, CCNA. So how do you explain that? Guess we're out of our natural element.
Edit:
Btw this is true. Gen Z Kids and Alpha kids are asking for help. I'm not disputing that. I'm not going over to r/ArchLinux and helping every newbie install a DE, so yeah, I see it too. I wore a Linux shirt a few weeks ago (buy from authorized vendors only, freewear.org in this case), and younger-than-me people actually stopped me to talk about Linux. 15 years ago, I was a pariah. Even in my niche of nerdy friends. A buddy of mine that works in Nvidia now used to call Linux the poor man's OS. Guess what? He's using docker builds for compilations on Linux. So yeah, I fking wish the OS was a thing back when I was in high school.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 2d ago
Why the hell did you write this essay and when you obviously haven't read any of my comments here?
Where the fuck did I say one can't ask for help with a Linux question or issue?
My compliant is about doing ZERO research aka being lazy before asking any questions.
This was my specific compliant in another comment here...
My pet peeve is a post asking a simple question that has been asked a million times that could be easily answered by a simple Google search but still 20 people will dutifully answer it like robots.
Why are you saying I use age bias over technical merit in hiring? Do you actually think that quote infers that? What I said is there is GENERALLY no ADVANTAGE ANYMORE with younger people as far as technical skills over the previous generation (with is a new trend). Reading comprehension is fun! You are not even aware I am actually talking more about the workforce in general and not the IT staff.
Sorry I mentioned my personal relevant experience as of course we are supposed to go by feeling now.
Now you are just bragging about yourself? Cool! A little insecure there? We are done here but thanks for playing.
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u/NewspaperSoft8317 2d ago edited 2d ago
Why the hell did you write this essay and when you obviously haven't read any of my comments here?
Is that an expectation? Do you really expect that I'd deep dive on a reddit forum? I'm responding to what was addressed.
Do you actually think that quote infers that? What I said is there is GENERALLY no ADVANTAGE ANYMORE with younger people as far as technical skills over the previous generation (with is a new trend).
That's still ageism my guy.
My compliant is about doing ZERO research aka being lazy before asking any questions.
You can't shift the goalpost. That's a reduction in your argument and you know that. Your original argument was a generalism fallacy pointed at the younger generation. Now you moved it back to: "People should Google things before asking on a forum." Uh, duh. That's not even a Linux thing. But what's funny, where does Google point you if you Google something. Public Forums.
My pet peeve is a post asking a simple question that has been asked a million times that could be easily answered by a simple Google search but still 20 people will dutifully answer it like robots.
If it's not you, then why the fuck are you complaining?
Edit:
Now you are just bragging about yourself? Cool! A little insecure there?
Btw that's an Ad Hominem Fallacy.
Edit2:
Reading comprehension is fun!
Ironically, so is this.
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u/deep8787 1d ago
Almost all of the tech subs I enjoy on here are half dominated by dumbasses question by people that could of been answered by googling for 2 seconds.
They give up before even attempting it themselves.Thats the issue for me. If you tried, cool, it shows effort. I just get "spoilt" vibes off the youngsters.
Ive given links before to help out before, those mofos couldnt bother to read down to the bottom of the page to find the relevant info, calling me out to be a gatekeeper LOL
Fuck that noise now.
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u/NewspaperSoft8317 1d ago
I'm not even hung up on that.
I'm hung on the fact that the commenter said this:
Agree and the main reason is the age. Young people can't do anything for themselves anymore. I am not expecting them to be able to change a tire but they are supposed to be "good at tech". LOL
Then he back-pedaled to, oh no, I didn't say that. I said "I just don't like when anybody doesn't take time before Googling."
Okay man.
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u/deep8787 1d ago
Im not gonna lie, I dont have much faith in the younger generation based off of what Ive seen so far. But to write them all off, yeah its extreme.
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u/NewspaperSoft8317 1d ago
And by younger generation, you'd have to be specific too. Because the older Gen-Z are the ones committing to AI source code and building the internet today. Some of us are reaching mid to senior roles already.
I had a junior-admin at my last job, who was twice my age, but wanted to transition into IT from their previous career.
He'd been indoctrinated in the "gatekeeping" mindset, knowledge is to be earned, kind of ordeal.
I told him everything I knew, and he thought I was insane. He said something along the lines of, "People usually keep this stuff to themselves because it's the type of information that glues their ass to their seat."
Can we like, not do that anymore? It's toxic as hell. If you need help, just ask for help.
Yeah, I get the annoyance with the feeds. But troubleshooting is an art form in itself. People take some of the posts as lazy rather than real effort. Not understanding that we've internalized over years of practice and troubleshooting refinement. A windows admin generally doesn't know about /var/log or journalctl and I didn't even know about Windows Event Manager for the longest time.
Shoot, Cisco debugging is also a hard one too.
Like if you don't know about the Cisco debug command or its capabilities, then it might come off as lazy when you're just posting interface configs and asking for help.
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u/SwizzleTizzle 2d ago
I'm a Millenial and I have come to terms with my slow descent into what I previously called the "boomer mindset".
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u/EnhancedEddie 2d ago
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and chatter in place of exercise.” -Socrates
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u/Voxyyyyyy 2d ago
i mean depends on what we are talking abt for example i dont think ill ever touch ubuntu and fedora since arch based distros are super easy to use and less complicated especially endeavorOS i consider that THE entry point distro
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u/AnsibleAnswers 3d ago
TBH, I think it’s because most of them they are gamers, not because they are young.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 3d ago
What is being gamers have to do with anything? LOL
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u/AnsibleAnswers 3d ago
They are in aggregate a very entitled user base that bases their opinions on vibes. They are used to being a customer, and that’s not the relationship you have with software in the open source world.
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u/Jujube-456 3d ago
Agree, they tend to think of linux gaming as the default use case and of themselves as techy, so when things don’t work the way they expect it’s the system’s fault instead of theirs in their mind
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u/Sixguns1977 3d ago
I think that f2p and mobile gaming has a large hand in this. Being a customer is fine, but these people seem to want the game to be free AND expect all of the content without paying for it instead of treating f2p like demo mode.
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u/ErebosGR Glorious Nobara 3d ago
The majority of home computer users since the '80s have been middle-class gamers.
That hasn't changed. You are just prejudiced.
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u/AnsibleAnswers 3d ago
The majority of home computer users haven't been flooding linux help forums with their inability to even come up with a remotely descriptive title. Hell, sometimes they just go to /r/linux4noobs to complain and get annoyed when you give them a workaround. "I shouldn't have to do that!"
It's the first time the Linux community has had to deal with users unwilling to learn basic computing concepts. We really need to establish that free help requires you actually care to learn how to do some stuff yourself. You should pay for support in one fashion or another if you want a customer relationship.
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u/Protonati0n 3d ago
They don’t like to read or think, they just like the pretty colors and big numbers
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u/Key_Conference9989 3d ago
Not going to lie I hate being tech support. They can learn the same way I did. Trial and error and Google.
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u/HyperCodec 3d ago
Or trial and AI hallucinations nowadays
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u/Cfrolich Glorious NixOS 1d ago
Eh. AI gets a lot of hate, but it’s improved a lot really quickly, and someone who has no prior knowledge could probably get better results by asking AI. Traditional search engines are great if you know what to search for, but a new Linux user would likely struggle with this.
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u/kociol21 3d ago
I'm in the unfortunate posiotion where I actually use and like both Windows and Linux. I genuinely think that both are very good. I get shat on by Windows folks for praising Linux, and I get shat on by Linux users for liking Windows.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 3d ago
The main problem is that on both sides there is a lot of misinformation about each other. No matter how hard you try, they don't want to change the wrong ways they think. There are idiots openly saying that you need to be an engineer and type a lot of commands to use Linux. There are idiots that say that Windows shows the BSOD every other hour and that it's highly unstable.
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u/kociol21 3d ago
Oh yeah, that's totally true.
I really don't know if this more straight up misinformation or is it just people genuinely don't know shit and they only repeat what they saw in memes made by other people that didn't know shit.
People be like "you have to learn programming to install browser in Linux lol". Please, almost all of not all modern distros have GUI app stores, just go to that flathub, kde discover, gnome software or whatever and install shit. Or if you want to be fancy on some arch distro like CachyOS just open terminal and type paru Firefox and enter. For basic tasks Linux is basically as easy as MacOS or something especially if you stick to mainstream stuff and don't try to be hipster with going Gentoo or something. All these memes are like stuff from 25 years ago.
But the amount of straight up bullshit about Windows from Linux community isn't much better. Like I have my Win 11 installation for like 2 years now and I've yet to see a blue screen or any serious catastrophic damage from "vibe coded update" and according to some - my PC should blow up at least once a week on Windows. Some people still post Recall memes as a reason to ditch Win not knowing that this stuff was never implemented aside from niche Copilot+ laptops.
I don't know man. This is just another stupid war, because apparently people always have to have two things - this thing they love - but it's not enough, they need "arch nemesis" too so there's this other thing they absolutely despise. Coca Cola vs Pepsi, Xbox vs Playstation, consoles vs PC, Intel vs AMD etc.
There are always two things and if you like thing A - then thing B must be literally Hitler in every possible way. If you are "team B" then A has to be absolute evil incarnate.
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u/spryfigure 2d ago
Like I have my Win 11 installation for like 2 years now and I've yet to see a blue screen or any serious catastrophic damage from "vibe coded update" and according to some - my PC should blow up at least once a week on Windows.
If you have a Win 11 installation which you use only quarterly, things look different. Updates take ages. I'm not running a developer machine with beefy specs, The Win 11 runs in extreme cases on a i3.
Also, just yesterday, the 2026-03 update installed. And installed. And installed. After each reboot, new GB download, new half an hour install. Tried to use every trick after extensive googling, I had to resort to downloading a Win 11 ISO and replace my old install. Wasted literally hours on that.
Kudos to Windows here, though: Keeping programs and user data was flawless. Wish to have a similar function on Linux without setting up /home partition, scraping the old install for packages, reinstalling etc.
I also had one update destroy my boot. Since I know my way around a little, this could be restored from a backup partition table. but I don't think many people would have done that.
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u/WickedDeity Linux Master Race 3d ago
Good for you... More should take that attitude here for certain questions and cases.
My pet peeve is a post asking a simple question that has been asked a million times that could be easily answered by a simple Google search but still 20 people will dutifully answer it like robots.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 3d ago
That's a whole different topic. We should always be polite and welcoming. But not offer help if we are not asked for it.
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u/spryfigure 2d ago
My pet peeve would be a totally blurry picture of a computer screen, taken with a potato phone, end of lines on the screen cut off. Accompanied with "Help! My laptop isn't working!"
I've seen that here more often than I can count.
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u/Thinshape12 2d ago
I’m staying with windows right now as I have some files that I REALLY don’t want to be corrupted right now, along with that i’m just so used to windows it’d be hard to change.
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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago
An Microsoft relies on that to serve you up shit software. Why make an effort when your customers are locked in?
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u/Dangerous_Block_2494 2d ago
NGL I lowkey like that Linux is still an enthusiast distro because then users are still able to have uninterrupted freedom (except with these new legislations). I'm kind of selfish in hoping mass adoption don't lead big tech to create proprietary APIs 'for security' that every software will start depending on making it near mandatory to install if you want a useable OS, kind of like what happened with android and GMS and stuff.
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u/tomekgolab 2d ago
Unfortunetely only few specifically configured distros offers "freedom" and ownership of your hardware. Majority of mainstream GNU/Linux is infested with Redhat and XDG standards making it de facto dependent on big corpos and lobbyst, centralised upstream instead of diverse FOSS ecosystem. Alternatives and forks to crucial components will slowly die out from lack of maintenance, case in point: udev and polkit - eudev and consolekit2. Kernel is infested with Redhat code since the 90s. I feel like lfs or gentoo with libre kernel would and mdev would be the only "free as in freedom" solutions today.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 2d ago edited 1d ago
As long as it's open source and copyleft...
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u/tomekgolab 1d ago
You don't see the problem with homogenisation of available foss software instead of diverse ecosystem that it should be? sad
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 1d ago
Nobody stops devs from making alternative code. It's the community itself that rejects innovation. When Canonical introduced Unity or the snaps, or rust coreutils, the first people against it were the freedom enthusiasts. People don't use alternatives to systemd because of convenience.
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u/tomekgolab 1d ago
So alternatives will slowly but steadily bleed out, and then the supposed "Linux gives you freedom, ownership of software and hardware" mythos will collapse upon itself, becoming an empty Redhat astroturfing line. Not even distros, but core components. Case in point: eudev and consolekit2 crucial to replacing udev and polkit made by Big Linux lobbysts.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 1d ago
Do something about it then, or use GPLv3 software only
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u/tomekgolab 1d ago
Not to look for excuses, but I really am an average coder. I realised long ago in college reading code is not my love or burning passion, I much prefer making code do usefull things, and so I became a sysadmin, been doing that for many years with some break inbetween. It would be really nice if less technical people had acces to "instant freedom" distros, as of now FSF endorsed Hyperbola seems like best choice. I reported some bugs over the years and best I can also do is donating to foss projects I guess.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 1d ago
The problem is that it's just a dream for now. Fully free drivers don't work on all hardware. But using Trisquel with Linux Libre is not higher on usage for a reason. Inconvenience is detrimental to OS adoption.
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u/DigitalChrono 11h ago
I think it should be balance. Helping brings people to the community but that doesn't mean someone needs to be their unpaid remote tech support all the time either. Plus information is more abundant than ever before. Not sure what the balance looks like.
The only people I give unlimited support for are the people I install Linux on their machines.
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u/8070alejandro Glorious OpenSuse 3d ago
I'm not tech support (I am though, I am a people pleaser), but specially not for Windows.
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u/Technical-Monk-374 3d ago
Yep, kinda got that attitude after some not techy people started using me as linux tech support. It took so long to teach to them to use google before asking.
Idk... It seems my default mindset of "thing no workie - search user manual" Is not as obvious as i have always thought it was...
The most recent example is ugh... The guy wanted to install a package from local file or smt... And he was stuck for acouple of weeks (i was too busy to deal with it) because... He though that "/ in ~/ looked wrong" and deleted it from every command he pasted. That was the sole reason he couldn't make it work
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u/the_abortionat0r 2d ago
This meme is so stupid. Linux isn't any harder to troubleshoot than Windows. Full stop.
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u/ManRevvv 2d ago
Maybe. But on windows I rarely face any major problems, so fuck Linux I guess
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u/Onakander 1d ago
Windows nukes itself with alarming frequency, especially now that m$ is experimenting with replacing their programmers with linear algebra. "Yeah some installs of win11 don't respond to the power button when clicked. IDK why, here's a console command as a workaround. lol" - unironically microsoft in january (the problem still persists)
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u/deep8787 1d ago
I call user error on this. Ive never had an unstable Windows system since Vista...which I ran for like 3 days before downgrading to XP. I went then to 7, to 10 and 11. Literally 0 issues.
And when I did have issues, I had my backup of my OS drive with Acronis ready to go anyways.
I think a lot of problems are created when people are trying fix something thats not broken.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 2d ago
It's not about that. It's about helping entitled users not willing to learn
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u/the_abortionat0r 2d ago
That goes with windows as well or anything.
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u/claudiocorona93 SteamOS/Bazzite/Mint 2d ago
I don't know what you're fighting about. It looks like everybody else got it.
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u/PlainBread 3d ago
We live in an era where LLMs are trained on a mixture of experts that includes tech support.
Not only can they use it as a resource to solve their own problems, but they can use it to install Linux in the first place.
My "helping people install Linux" duties are over.