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Isn't the real answer: This thing is unnecessarily hard, so let's get together and fix it. One clear thing that needs fixing: Linux desperately needs definitiv

Isn't the real answer: This thing is unnecessarily hard, so let's get together and fix it. One clear thing that needs fixing: Linux desperately needs definitive how tos for every common thing an admin/user might need to do posted and maintained on a distro specific/owned site. As it is now, when I want to learn how to do {thing1}, I have to sift through a complex maze of stack questions, blog posts, youtube videos, etc. Many are ancient, don't really apply to the distro I'm on, fail to mention that there are other ways of doing it (some of which might be better for a given situation), etc. Then, when I finally settle on a howto, it fails to work and then I burn hours troubleshooting and tweaking. Eventually, I get it to work but when I reflect on what it took to get there, I couldn't really follow the breadcrumbs of my frustrated efforts well enough to document it for posterity. Eventually, I run into problems with {thing2} and I realize that the fastest way to troubleshoot is to wipe the box and start clean, but I can't because recreating {thing1} is a multi-hour task.

LilBytes 5y ago
Is this not where containers improve this a lot? Plus the use of Packer and Ansible with CI/CD, you'll see where your builds and deploys break quickly and see those failures before you need a server replacement now.
chlorion 5y ago
The first source I always check are man pages, both for the program and for the config files for that program. Then anything else is normally on the Arch or Gentoo wiki. The are very few topics that aren't covered by one or more of these sources! I think most people don't consider checking those wikis because they aren't using those distros, but right now they are the largest and most comprehensive source of information that we have and most of the content is generic and works with any distro or even non-linux OSes.

LilBytes 5y ago

Is this not where containers improve this a lot? Plus the use of Packer and Ansible with CI/CD, you'll see where your builds and deploys break quickly and see those failures before you need a server replacement now.

chlorion 5y ago

The first source I always check are man pages, both for the program and for the config files for that program. Then anything else is normally on the Arch or Gentoo wiki. The are very few topics that aren't covered by one or more of these sources! I think most people don't consider checking those wikis because they aren't using those distros, but right now they are the largest and most comprehensive source of information that we have and most of the content is generic and works with any distro or even non-linux OSes.