Most people rarely read warnings or signs. They’re used to needing to just click accept and move on. More than that, their entire experience thus far will have trained them to just type in the magic command line words and get it over with. This is what linux enthusiasts beat into them while pretending everything is a cake walk. “Don’t trust anything” while simultaneously telling them to use this and that script, and copy this and that text into the terminal. Its not at all a wonder to imagine that behaviour.
It wasn’t a standard accept/continue/yes prompt, it wasn’t something that he could just press enter or something easy and continue without noticing, he had to have read the message to know what to do, it was something akin to:
WARNING The following essential packages will be removed. This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you’re doing!
…
You’re about to do something harmful, if you’re sure of what you’re doing type the phrase “Yes, do as I say!”
The message couldn’t have been more clear about it. Plus most users wouldn’t need to use the terminal, he just happened to use the distro during the brief window that that bug existed.
As a Linux enthusiast I can definitely tell you I never encourage people to just type words in the magic box and get it over with, and always tell them to understand what they’re typing.
Doesn’t matter. This is an opinion that is 100% formed in an echo chamber where you are far removed from what a regular user would think going through this process. All of these prompts you think look different, to a normal person might as well be literally exactly the same. “I don’t know what I am doing, but the program says to do the next thing, with some warning that probably doesnt matter because I’m not doing something hard or critically important”.
Of note:
WARNING The following essential packages will be removed. This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you’re doing!
That is a message that would not impede a regular user at all, or would completely stop them from using the OS.
They’re trying to install steam. Why would they have any reason to believe that whatever programs are mentioned matter, or think that this message matters when they’re doing something that is in theory extremely simple?
Plus most users wouldn’t need to use the terminal, he just happened to use the distro during the brief window that that bug existed.
How does this negate the fact that the actions taken were reasonable and absolutely not the users fault? In fact, the fact that this was fixed and treated so urgently betrays what a flaw it was.
As a Linux enthusiast I can definitely tell you I never encourage people to just type words in the magic box and get it over with, and always tell them to understand what they’re typing.
Lets for the sake of not stating what I actually assume to be true take your word at face value.
What you recommend is simply incompatible with the majority of people. They don’t have the time or effort to devote into actually learning as much as you’d need to learn for this to actually be useful advice.
A great amount of information must be completely skipped over and ignored to be proficient in a reasonable amount of time.
I’ve used Linux at multiple jobs, and used it as my main desktop OS for more than a year. I know this to be true. For the average person to follow your advice, they’d need to have a firm grasp of BASH. Expecting people to learn even one scripting language, especially an old esoteric one with many gotchas and vestiges of its time is an absurd ask, so of course no one would listen to your advice as it is utterly unreasonable on its face, and completely incompatible with the level of user adoption people hope for.
So then, there is the other advice, from people who are also elitists, but in a different way. They believe these people must be stupid to not figure out the problems on their own, and casually tell them to just RTFM or use X, Y or Z script with reckless abandon.
Neither of these lead to anything remotely resembling the ease of use of operating systems these users will have come from, no matter how much Linux enthusiasts insist their weird edge cases where they feel those OSes are inferior mean that somehow, magically their opinions apply to the users they are appealing to.
I have a lot more to say honestly, as I have certainly thought about this a lot, but by this point and given the excerpt I am replying to, I’ve learned to never expect good faith discussion, so I’m just limiting my losses by stopping here as I expect toxic positivity as a response.
You are very far removed from a normal user then.
Most people rarely read warnings or signs. They’re used to needing to just click accept and move on. More than that, their entire experience thus far will have trained them to just type in the magic command line words and get it over with. This is what linux enthusiasts beat into them while pretending everything is a cake walk. “Don’t trust anything” while simultaneously telling them to use this and that script, and copy this and that text into the terminal. Its not at all a wonder to imagine that behaviour.
It wasn’t a standard accept/continue/yes prompt, it wasn’t something that he could just press enter or something easy and continue without noticing, he had to have read the message to know what to do, it was something akin to:
WARNING The following essential packages will be removed. This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you’re doing! … You’re about to do something harmful, if you’re sure of what you’re doing type the phrase “Yes, do as I say!”
The message couldn’t have been more clear about it. Plus most users wouldn’t need to use the terminal, he just happened to use the distro during the brief window that that bug existed.
As a Linux enthusiast I can definitely tell you I never encourage people to just type words in the magic box and get it over with, and always tell them to understand what they’re typing.
Doesn’t matter. This is an opinion that is 100% formed in an echo chamber where you are far removed from what a regular user would think going through this process. All of these prompts you think look different, to a normal person might as well be literally exactly the same. “I don’t know what I am doing, but the program says to do the next thing, with some warning that probably doesnt matter because I’m not doing something hard or critically important”.
Of note:
That is a message that would not impede a regular user at all, or would completely stop them from using the OS.
They’re trying to install steam. Why would they have any reason to believe that whatever programs are mentioned matter, or think that this message matters when they’re doing something that is in theory extremely simple?
How does this negate the fact that the actions taken were reasonable and absolutely not the users fault? In fact, the fact that this was fixed and treated so urgently betrays what a flaw it was.
Lets for the sake of not stating what I actually assume to be true take your word at face value.
What you recommend is simply incompatible with the majority of people. They don’t have the time or effort to devote into actually learning as much as you’d need to learn for this to actually be useful advice.
A great amount of information must be completely skipped over and ignored to be proficient in a reasonable amount of time.
I’ve used Linux at multiple jobs, and used it as my main desktop OS for more than a year. I know this to be true. For the average person to follow your advice, they’d need to have a firm grasp of BASH. Expecting people to learn even one scripting language, especially an old esoteric one with many gotchas and vestiges of its time is an absurd ask, so of course no one would listen to your advice as it is utterly unreasonable on its face, and completely incompatible with the level of user adoption people hope for.
So then, there is the other advice, from people who are also elitists, but in a different way. They believe these people must be stupid to not figure out the problems on their own, and casually tell them to just RTFM or use X, Y or Z script with reckless abandon.
Neither of these lead to anything remotely resembling the ease of use of operating systems these users will have come from, no matter how much Linux enthusiasts insist their weird edge cases where they feel those OSes are inferior mean that somehow, magically their opinions apply to the users they are appealing to.
I have a lot more to say honestly, as I have certainly thought about this a lot, but by this point and given the excerpt I am replying to, I’ve learned to never expect good faith discussion, so I’m just limiting my losses by stopping here as I expect toxic positivity as a response.