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My biggest annoyance with man pages are that built-ins are a separate command and that there is no way to print all man pages but the first with the man command. That’s right. There’s no way to print every page for a command, 1 through 7 or whatever, with a flag. I am confidently saying there’s no way to do it.
👀
Hoping someone wants to correct me because I want an alias that prints all pages as one. Would also be nice if it did it for built-ins.
A skill that will be out sourced to AI.
Agreed. I’ve saved so much money by RTFM. As a father of three kids, every dollar saved means a better life for my family.
Car broken? RTFM, bought an ODBII scanner, and fixed it.
Need air conditioning? RTFM and installed my own heat pumps in my house, saving $7000 in labor and markup.
House has an old 60 amp fuse panel? Paid an electrician for the service upgrade, read the NEC, wired and installed all branch circuits and sub panels myself. Passed inspection. Saved $7500.
When you take the time to learn something, you not only get the satisfaction of using your own hands to accomplish something, but you also get to save money.
i could be reading some fucking manuals right now instead of lemmy…
Here
for application in /usr/bin/*; do man $application; doneget going
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)
Most people don’t even read the error messages. They’re never gonna read a whole manual.
Most people were conditioned by more “user-friendly” systems to ignore the content of error messages because only an expert can make sense of “Error: 0x8000000F Unknown Error”. So they don’t even try, and that’s how they put themselves in a
Yes, do as I say!situation.It’s not even obscure, context dependent errors. I’ve had many professional system administrators not understand what “connection was closed by peer” meant.
Well, to be fair, I’m also not very well versed in the intricacies of connecting with British nobility.
One day I’ll catch that jerk Peer! So rude, always closing my connections!
It’s very much on brand for Peer, at least in the beginning of the play https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Gynt
More than once I had trouble calls about an “error message” that basically said “everything is fine, click ok to proceed”
But most error messages are in plain English first (plus some numbers and codes).
No, they see white (gray actually) blocky text on a black background, they think the machine is broken and go into panic mode. Instead of reading.
Which is kinda what you said.
People who don’t read error messages or do not take the time to see what is going on and just come to the technician/mechanic/doctor saying “it doesn’t work” or some half-assed hypothesis piss me off so bad.
I know that at some point we all do a little of this in our lifes, but some people don’t seem to be able to read one goddamn paragraph ever.
but some people don’t seem to be able to read one goddamn paragraph ever.
I had a problem with my car. It felt strange while driving. Made some unusual noise. Then a bit later the motor warning light came on.
I went to the garage, told them about the warning light and what I noticed the time before, what I suspected and such. A short while after the mechanic came to me and asked for a few details, as my description “wasn’t helpful” and the repair would be much faster with more details that told them where to look etc. Turns out the guy who checked in my car only noted “a warning light is on” and nothing else of my ramblings.
So sometimes it’s also paying attention to what might be important and relaying information.
ah well, then that is them being stubborn and being unable to troubleshoot.
To be fair, I forgot an important bit of context. I was on vacation abroad when my car broke on a Friday afternoon. Our hotel room was only available until Saturday morning as everything was booked out for the weekend because of a huge event in the city. They asked me just to get a first indication and not waste time with random troubleshooting, so that I could get home and get everything checked completely with a more relaxed schedule.
From my view, it was a sensible thing to do. But the literal translation on their report they showed me was just “the warning light is lit” - not even which (though that is quite obvious, when you start the engine)
To be fair, techs don’t usually talk to the people who can read, so they’re only ever going to see idiots. There are competent people in the world, they’ll just never need your help, so you don’t see them.
Last time I called tech support, it was for a Dell, and I interrupted their speech to tell them I already looked up the diagnostic. They asked which numbers were lit on the error panel to confirm I had the right diagnostic, and passed me directly to who I needed to talk to. I only called tech support because the cpu socket died and I was putting in a warranty claim, otherwise they would have never even heard from me because I could just install a new motherboard myself.
edit: speeling
At this point, if a student brings in a laptop, explains what doesn’t work, and leaves me to diagnose and fix it, I consider it a good report because it means that the student didn’t get any overconfident ideas. If a student also explains what they were doing when a thing failed, I’m giving them preferential treatment.
Then there are comp-sci students who attempted something. I had one who disassembled their laptop and tore a ribbon cable. I had one who plugged in a random mis-matched RAM stick that turned out to be busted and wondered why Windows kept crashing. I had one who completely fucked up the registry. I had one who wanted to install Ubuntu for dual booting and accidentally wiped the entire SSD.
I would rather spend an hour babysitting their computers than an entire afternoon un-fucking something they thought they could handle. If it were up to me, I would restrict the crap out of their user accounts, but the faculty leaders insist, against empirical evidence, that they’re smart enough.
Are these laptops provided by the faculty?
In any case I do not mind so much the “I should try to fix this on my own first”. If it’s your own device and accept the risks/consequences. But if it is a work/university provided laptop then it makes no sense to attempt to fix it on one’s own.
I can feel your pain trying to fix/repair something you have to figure out what kind of stupid stuff was done to the device.
They’re provided by the faculties at the university’s expense, but the students have admin rights and very little supervision. Two fairly expensive laptops have been stolen by exchange students during the three years I’ve worked there – they simply never bothered to return them, and we only realized it during the yearly inventory check. But fixing the asset tracking system (or implementing one in the first place) is not what I’m getting paid for.
They’ll refuse to attempt to understand the problem then get mad when they get ripped off.
What about the fucking manual?
Kama Sutra?
I guess you get good at Unix and refrigerator by reading it, so why not?
Don’t fuck the manual!
It’s Read The Fucking Manual not Fuck The Reading Manual
They don’t.
Undoing self-owns like ignoring available information is the basis for 40% of the economy.
I recently had a coworker who would frequently get an error message while completing their time card. The message was slightly cryptic, something like “invalid cost center”, but no indication (in the message) of which line(s). This happened so often, that when they would call me to complain that they were getting an error, I usually already knew what error they were getting, but for some reason, they could never remember the steps to find & correct it and had to call me every time.
And because people don’t read error messages, many applications/sites/etc don’t even put them, or if they do they either don’t have any public facing documentation to actually figure out what that code means, or they do and it might as well be nothing
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.
copypasta levels
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
Grok, is this true?
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.
we’re cooked
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.
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”
You mean actual paper manuals ester-egged inside the appliances themselves? In 2025?
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
I dread the day the users read the manual
I doubt that day will ever come
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.
try to RTFM for Microsoft…lol shits updated too much and all the old information is still there and outdated. convoluted mess of shit is all they are
still, RTFM…always
In order to RTFM one must first WTFM
And FTFM. Find the fucking manual.
And perhaps TTFM. Translate the fucking manual either from broken chinese-english or the tech-lingo + missing context information which is almost every manpage on Linux, making it nearly useless for the average user unless you got hours and hours of time to understand all the adjacent concepts and commands.
Keeping the common user stupid is the better part of Mickeysoft’s business model. The proposed solution for every problem is guessing what MS’ silly nomenclature might actually mean while poking around in GUIs that do nothing but keep you busy. Then buy something from their app store. RTFM doesn’t work in a system that’s inconsistent and undocumented by design. That’s not the fault of RTFM as a concept but a travesty of it.
Unironically, if you bing Windows API related queries rather than googling them, you’re much more likely to find a relevant manual page that answers your question clearly. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google is actively worsening Windows-related queries to make Windows look bad and sell Android devices and Chromebooks. Another example is that googling msvcp140.dll not found or similar queries gives you loads of dodgy download this individual DLL here and put it in System32 and we promise we’ve not tampered with it websites instead of the page for the universal MSVC redistributable installer that’s the only supported way to get the DLL (and a bunch of other related ones) as an end user.
As for silly nomenclature, generally on Windows, API functions are much more likely to describe what they do and much less likely to be a town in Wales. If you don’t already know what
fstatdoes, it’s much easier to guess thatGetFileTimewould be the right function to get a file’s last modification time thanfstat, for example.I have been told that the reason their publically available training, problem solving, and educational material is so terrible is because there is a secret printed guidebook somewhere that makes everything make sense and if everyone had it it could negatively impact the windows economy.
I do not know if that is true, but I have been told it and it does kind of explain why sites like learn.microsoft.com are so terrible that I would rather reread the world book encyclopedia 1969 edition from A to Z including the index than try to figure out how to run a single powershell command from the educational materials available on that site.
Have you tried sfc /scannow?
I just want to say I’m glad other people understand how ridiculous of a suggestion this is for fixing Windows problems. It has become such a low effort nonsensical approach because people don’t truly understand what it does and it feels like doing something. It’s the new ‘have you tried turning it off and on again.’ dism and sfc. Then when someone mentions how absurd the thinking is that this fixes anything but a small negligible fraction of issues, someone always chimes in how there was this one time where it worked for them. Perpetuating this low effort, almost useless approach to troubleshooting. I’ve fixed more issues with BIOS updates than I have with either of those tools.
I’ve just reinstalled windows every few years to deal with the unfixable issues
MSFT’s strategy is anti-documentation.
You want help?
Money Please!
(For clarity, I am being cheeky, but I am not joking.)
Microsoft documentation actually sucks information out of your brain and leaves you knowing less than before you read it.
This is a problem with more than just Microsoft. Any software (game, application, library, whatever) that has had many years of updates some of which are breaking, will have this problem with docs.
Oh you are using version 5.5.24 of xyzlib? All these docs are a mixture of stuff when 4.2.57 was out and stuff someone tried to update when 7.5.14 released.
Or the documentation is basically empty and tells you nothing at all (looking at you WinRT…)
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.
