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for application in /usr/bin/*; do man $application; doneget going
copypasta levels
Y’all not just out there vibe OSing?
I think a lot of documentation just fly over my head. I have a masters degree in mathematics, but so many manuals have such deeply ingrained “tribal” language that everyone takes for granted that you know.
If you have a good starting point for a poor linux noob to read manuals, hit me up.
(That being said, I DO read the manuals for appliances and all that. THAT stuff is luckily easy)
God yes. I absolutely LOVE a well written manual.
Even if you THINK you know how a thing works, it’s always good to find out the quirks and gotchas, not to mention functionality that might not be obvious at first glance.
In fact, I read the manuals before buying an item or piece of software. They tend to be much more enlightening about a product’s limitations than the marketing material is.
Conversely, it really annoys the fuck out of me when people come on forums and ask a really basic question that’s answered on page 2 of the manual. It shows that someone is incredibly lazy and incapable of basic problem solving. And they have the audacity to get offended when you tell them it’s covered in the manual.
Imagine reading manuals lmao
I’ve been using Linux for about a year now, I have no clue what is even in /usr/bin …you people have manuals?! I needed a manual to find the thing.
I just learned about “man thing” in terminal a couple days ago. I had no idea they’re kept in that folder.
When my friends talk about what books they’re reading and it comes back to me I just joke and say “oh I largely read non-fiction”.
I read every manual, decision tree, process document, whatever lands in front of me.
RTFM is life
Lol. That’s exactly what I did in the early 90s. ls /usr/bin, then man at, or whatever it was that came first, and work onwards from there.
Moreso when I installed my own Unix machine (briefly Minix, quickly replaced by Linux) and had to actually learn how to manage it.But then I came from a mix of 8 bit, PC and semi big iron (Tandem) culture where any machine you used would matter of factly come with a litteral wall of binders containing documentation for pretty much anything (which led to the fun regular “documentation day” where you had to manually “patch” the documentation by replacing pages in all the binders with updated ones).
Anyway knowing what the fuck you were doing was pretty much expected. So everyone spent a lot of time perusing documentation.Of course nowadays, to read documentation, you first have to find it, which can be quite a challenge in itself. But at least the manpages are still there.
I used to be a Crew Chief of F-15’s in the U.S. AirForce. We had manual patches too. Luckily, that was Supports job duty.
It’s interesting. There’s a lot of talk about how chatgpt makes people lazy, but honestly I think Google killed the “read the manual” ethos.
Back in the day when you couldn’t just search for everything, you needed enough understanding of the manual to find anything in the index.
So a key part of figuring anything out was reading at least the start of the manual.
Now, fuck it, you just type into Google and try to guess enough context to understand what’s going on.
Agreed, finding a manual should always be the first step to solving a problem imo. Even when searching online, I prefer if I can find the official docs/wiki for a piece of software, then search within that.
I read the manuals for everything now. I think it’s because when I was a kid videogames used to come with great manuals and half the fun was just reading through those. One of my favourites was for the original Heavy Gear on PC. that thing was like a hybrid manual and lore bible. Or old Flight Sim games with manuals that were as thick as text books.
Now you don’t get shit.
Arcanum manual, my beloved https://archive.org/details/Arcanum_-_Manual
I had the same experience. It could even be a long time before you were allowed to play, so reading the manual just increased the anticipation and made your mind wander wildly with all the possibilities.
Yep, I remember fondly the booklets in the disc cases. Some were light, some were thorough. It’s a lost art
I mean in general, “read things -> learn” is a good approach to life imo.
Too long and difficult. I’ll let chat gpt tell me instead and read that between adverts on Love Island
I’ll be honest, I’m guilty of using Chat GPT at times for stuff I know barely anything about and know I probably won’t be able to find through research as quickly as I’d like to. I always try the old-fashioned way of using a search engine first, go through reddit and forums and stuff, but sometimes I just need to use AI for a good first pointer
It’s not a terrible idea. ChatGPT is great at summarizing info, especially stuff you’d use manuals for. I make sure to ask it where certain info came from (so I can try to verify) OR having it explain its approach so I get it in the future.
Grok, is this true?
we’re cooked
I work in IT. I’ve read so many manuals that I don’t need to read manuals almost ever.
As soon as you learn the design language for stuff, it usually just makes sense where to find stuff and how to fix it. It’s rare that I have a problem that I can’t solve just by looking at it.
If I ever get stuck, guess what? I RTFM. That’s basically my job. I RTFM because end users can’t be arsed to do it themselves. If everyone read the manual, I’d be out of a job.
quick everyone, stop RTFM ! save this man’s job !
In many cases you get hired for having the knowledge and experience instead of just having skills.
Many linux CLI tools also tend to have similar names for arguments with similar effects.
That also reduces the re-reading.I dread the day the users read the manual
I doubt that day will ever come
After a while it’s basically muscle memory so you don’t have to go digging as much. OpenBSD’s are my favorite. So well-written.
Yea I run OpenBsd on my VPS. So much nicer than having to wonder where this particular Linux distro decided to keep this particular config file.
For appliances at least, 95% of “the manual” today is useless CYA safety disclosures in 17 different languages. Manuals today rarely contain useful information.
Until you do like step one of taking an appliance apart, and realize that the real manual is marked “for technician use only”, and it’s hidden inside of the appliance.
My washer and dryer both have good manuals complete with circuit diagrams under the top once i take a few screws out. My chest freezer has one taped up under the hatch where the compresser sits. My refrigerator has one hidden in the door hinge.
You mean actual paper manuals ester-egged inside the appliances themselves? In 2025?
Yeah, my parents were about to throw out an oven that would keep shutting off. I pull it away from the wall and boom, wiring diagram. Take out the ohm meter, figure out that the resistance across the temperature probe went to near zero when steam intruded through a gap in the crimp. 5 dollar part and it was good to go for years to come (the new part was crimped in a simpler, more robust way).
That or Google “<model> service manual”
Dishwasher had the service manual taped to the kick plate. It gave me codes to troubleshoot, finding the heating element died.
Ah, yeah, forgot that was another one I’ve done. It seems like I’ve taken apart most of my household appliances at this point.
Yup, just got done wiring up an old washer to turn it into a feather plucker using the technician only manual!
There’s sometimes a few Ikea style pictures showing how to put it on a table and plug it in. Which is possibly useful to some.
The actual manual is usually hidden somewhere on it for repair techs to find. For my oven it was taped on the back.
Yep. I needed the circuit diagram for my microwave to fix an issue with the light (kept blowing out bulbs rapidly). Turned out you have to pull it out of the top inner frame, after unscrewing the button board and top panel. Thankfully, was an easy soldering fix, thyristor blew.
Generally microwaves are amongst the devices I tag as “do not self repair” I lack the confidence in my repair skills to fuck with the machine with giant caps and built in death ray.
If it was a problem with the microwave function I don’t think I’d have bothered. I’m terrible at repairing things and break most things worse than they were before. But it was the lightbulb acting up (the underside one, we’ve got an over-range mounted unit).
In this case I had the circuit diagram and multiple YouTube videos to lean on. Thankfully the thyristor is big, because I’m terrible at soldering, but it worked out.
Appliance repair in the 20’s? WTFY (Watch the fucking Youtube)
query:samsung Ice maker stoped working
Hi, I’m jimmy from shadyApplianceParts.com Did your samsung ice box stop making ice? That’s a common problem. What you need to…
Honestly I have to disagree. All my recently purchased appliances: microwave, washing machine, dishwasher and induction cooktop, had detailed instruction manuals that were genuinely useful, especially where the finer details aren’t obvious from the device itself.
Heck, even my wireless earbuds had a little bit of useful info, like how to force them into pairing mode.
Of course, all those manuals contained those nonsense safety warnings too (and I read every word of course! :P) but that’s neither here nor there.
All those safety warnings are useless nonsense, until:
This vacuum is not water resistant and no part of it shall come into contact with water. Do not operate this vacuum on wet floors.
Wash the infuser with water or coffee machine cleaning powder only. Do not wash with soap. Every 6 months, relubricate the seals with food and water safe silicone grease certified with NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 and NSF/ANSI 51.
Well, good to know.
The troubleshooting section of the manual is almost always useless because it only ever covers user error.
My washer threw a drainage error and the manual suggested I blocked the outlet or had done something daft. I looked up the error code online and 90% of the time it was a failed water pump.
I had to replace the water pump. It was an easy job that required less documentation than a lego set for a 5 year old. You just had to know which screws to loosen to get to the pump. Was it documented? Of course not.
And software doesn’t even come with those kinds of manuals anymore.
Some does if you’re lucky.
