Hello Linux community.
I’d like to take a moment to explain what I hope will be a simple concept (so really it’s more of a reminder) that everyone should say least know and understand.
Not everyone (myself included) learns best by RTFM. Some of us need a guiding hand or to watch a video instead. It’s not that we’re lazy or don’t like reading, it’s just that it doesn’t work efficiently enough.
RTFM long predates videos in the internet; at this point I’d actually call it inclusive of videos and guides.
I actually get pretty pissed off when the only guide for a feature beyond a couple lines of “here’s what this can do” with no elaboration is just a video. I don’t want a video. I want a damn manual with working examples.
But if its all there is, I’ll watch it before asking questions. The same should go for people who prefer videos, they should at least try the manual first, or looking at some guides or videos.
What’s frustrating for people (generically speaking) is when zero attempt is made in advance of posting questions, and from what I see, is the majority of “RTFM” responses.
Oh I hate how everything is a video. Sometimes I just want text so I can ship to relevant section.
It drives me nuts.
At least provide a transcript somewhere. Thats all I ask.
I suggest to replace RTFM by WHYTSF : What Have You Tried So Far.
The goal isn’t to blame or guilt trip anyone, rather it’s to genuinely help and for that others need to know… WHYTSF?!
I’ve tried nothing and I’m all out of ideas.
That is great, it puts the onus on the asker to prove they tried something
sadly dwarfed by YouTube videos that are outdated as soon as they are produced, and web guides nobody maintains. worse, AI scrapers only know this outdated information and happily hallucinate based on it it is EXHAUSTING having users cheer and celebrate the placebo of all the made up bullshit that does nothing in their config or worse breaks everything in unpredictable ways
I hate it when AI hallucinates an answer but I REALLY hate it when I try to ask a question and some smug know-it-all tells me I just want to be spoon fed the answers and didn’t do any research on my own. Usually if I am to the point of writing a post asking for help I have tried the usual ways of finding answers (at least the ones that work for me - man pages decidedly do not) and I’m at the point where yes, I WOULD like to be just spoon-fed the answer if you know it (or at least a relevant link), thank you very much. More than once I have got REALLY pissed off at a guy like that and then usually I’m the one that gets censored or booted out of the forum, while the know-it-all goes on to find another victim to bully. Oh, and then there are the moderators who censor “low quality” posts (except from their friends and users they like).
So when AI came along, I found it much easier to ask it and try to work through the hallucinations than to deal with that, and I suspect a whole lot of other people felt the same, and that is one reason why sites like Stack Exchange saw participation fall off a cliff. And AI keeps getting better and (so far at least) has never once criticized me for not trying hard enough to find something on my own. I get some people want challenges in their lives, but not everyone does and even those who like to be challenged now and then don’t always want it to be in the same areas of their lives. There are people who enjoy running in marathons but who would hate any friction at all when trying to use their computer.
Why not man pages though? That’s a very fast way of finding answers.
I find AI way more up to date then searching.
AI scrapers only know this outdated information
While I have experienced this (quite a lot), it’s much easier to spend five minutes figuring this out with an AI than it is to spend an hour trying to work that out by searching forums for answers.
I have a suggestion for those that don’t have a burning hatred of all things AI or Google - try NotebookLM (https://notebooklm.google/) which is FREE for limited usage. It may take you a few tries to learn how to use it effectively *there are videos showing how) but what you can do is give it a list of URL’s on any topic. These can be man pages, wiki links, PDF documents, links to specific posts or discussion forums, YouTube videos, or almost anything that can be accessed via a link. You can include up to 50 links for free (up to 10 at a time, I think it is a bug that if you try to add more than 10 at once it just silently fails and then you have to go to a different “notebook” and come back to try again).
Then when you have added all your links, you can ask for a summary of the material, or ask specific questions based just on the links you have added (no more outdated responses). You can even do things like generate graphics or audio “podcasts” or even videos with really bad visuals (IMHO) based on your links collection if you want to. But what I find is when dealing with complex material it often makes connections that I would never have seen. And did I mention it’s free for limited usage? You just need a Google account to use it (and yes I realize that’s a non-starter for some people, and no I would never ever include anything personal in my links or requests).
The idea of RTFM is that if you have questions, then we are all on same page with basic information found in the manual. I mean you expect others explain what is already said in the manual. Its like asking how to use your microwave oven, even if you have the manual right at your hand. Now, if the manual is unclear or difficult to understand, that is a different story. Then you can at least say you didn’t understand it. The point is, that you did something before (your homework) and looked at the obvious places like the manual (and maybe further websearch).
People don’t like others being lazy and asking the questions that doesn’t need to be asked. That’s why RTFM exist. As much as you might take the “RTFM” as an offending answer, those people think of you question as offending too. Now there are people who use this term loosely in places when it is not appropriate. Also it depends on the audience. If your grandma tries to use a browser to watch funny cat videos, and asks how to use it, then it would be inappropriate to say RTFM. But if you have a Linux user who asks about how to use
grep, then I think it is an appropriate reply.Long time linux user: The worse problem is they don’t even tell WHICH manual is relevant to the issue.
“How do I make my secondary drive auto-decrypt?” “RTFM”
Could have at least said “man crypttab 5” so that I don’t have to waste 3 hours just trying to find the starting point.
“They”. That’s one sort of people who does RTFM the wrong way in my opinion. If I do RTFM, even for obvious simple ones, I most likely point to where to look at, ideally with a link. I do not RTFM literally, but saying there is some documentation and pointing to it usually. To me just saying RTFM (literally with this acronym) is rude, especially if someone already struggles and asks basic questions. Not everyone is “they”.
RTFM is mostly a flex that people who got help before you are now referring to because they are already on the boat.
That said, a rudimentary Web search or maybe a llm question, might be in order before asking. You also learn more when you get those little successes by yourself.
While I agree that a little search is good for everyone, if no one asks questions publicly then no one has anything to find. I don’t trust llm accuracy so I don’t recommend that.
While not a reliable source on its own, it can usually point you in the right direction.
do you mean man pages? man pages are awesome. man is like the biggest deal command in unix.
Ι must say that Arch Linux’s wiki pages are easily understood. But man pages are not. I can’t follow the standard manual format. Just like with IKEA instructions, they just don’t make sense to me. My brain is like that. But Arch Linux pages are good.
“RTFM” (or similar comments like “it’s in the docs”) are just mean and useless without a reference.
Like, okay, superior user in the internet: If it’s in the manual/docs, what page? Do you have a link? Could you quote the relevant section?
Often people ask because they couldn’t find the answer in the docs. Simply pointing them at the answer is infinitely better than “lol the answer is in there somewhere”
See also: “Let me Google that for you…” Like mf Google brought me to this thread!
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Yeah, that’s what I meant by “the manual”. Though I suppose the Linux community is the most likely to be flipping through a physical book to figure out their bash script.
As a rule I don’t tell people to RTFM, because it has some rude dismissive connotations, although I will share when it helps me solve a problem I’ve been butting up against that would’ve been solved if I had just read the docs.
That being said, I do encourage people to read the docs, as others’ walkthroughs can be misinformational, and are usually tied to specific setups or software and hardware versions. It requires learning how to wade through a lot of information to find the info you need, but the info is usually guaranteed to be the most current and reliable.
That all being said, I’m more than happy to help when people want it.
I started my development career working on a VAX-VMS system. We had a large cupboard full of documentation for the OS, and it contained every answer I needed. Multiple volumes of documentation!
It was so much better reading official the docs to understand how a particular system call worked. And very gratifying being able to internally say “I worked it out for myself!”. I miss those days.
No, fuck you.
If you want to use the community computer you have to actually put forth the effort to learn how to do it. There is no excuse in 2026, vast mountains of educational material in every format written for every combination of medium and cognition are available at an instant.
From your perspective it would be easier and more efficient if people made videos, or talked you through it. From everyone else’s perspective it’s a big waste of time when they could be doing literally anything else and you will end up with a stronger understanding when you do it yourself.
That’s not to say people won’t help you, just that you should put forth the effort to learn so you don’t burden the community, such as it is, with your simple requests.
Alternately, you don’t have to use linux. Windows is a perfectly good operating system, macos is a perfectly good operating system.
I dunno man, I want my friends and family using Linux. I don’t think this is the right mentality.
People still converse over simple facts. What does the plant that grows cinnamon look like? Who won the Super Bowl in x year? Simple facts that could easily just be looked up, but people like talking to each other.
Even reading off a Wikipedia page to someone else, you get an opportunity to cater the tone, pace, and omissions / additional clarity to whomever you’re talking to.
The drop in Stack Overflow questions shows that if people can’t get helpful answers from other humans, they will get them from AI.
Not working efficiently enough is the key. RTFM is a skill and it takes patience and practice. Investing that time is worth it as it is ultimately the fastest way. And you learn peripheral information along the way. If getting the job done now, then do what works for you.
I would however warn against watching video. Watching videos is the slowest way to learn something. Think about how often you watch at 4x only to jump around and miss what you are looking for. Compare that to using a wiki or an old fashion book. Skimming and jumping around is much easier. But once again, do what works for you.
RTFMP - I’d read the man pages if I could decipher them. 😁
Mostly /s
I can’t count the number of times I swear I read every man page and I can’t figure out how to structure my arguments–especially when they are nested or conditional.
I especially wish more man pages had common examples. Sometimes an example can say more than a paragraph of explanation.
I feel like you’d love
tldr.I especially wish more man pages had common examples.
A thousand times this. It’s all well and good telling us what each option does, but if we don’t know how to form the command around the various arguments and paths, then it’s all fairly useless.
Caddy when I was trying to learn setting up encrypted hello.
From the beginning of computing there has been a problem with bootstrapping knowledge… the person creating a tool gives it a name, and describes it, but knowing that someone solved the problem you have and what the name of that tool was always a challenge.
But that is nothing new… you posted in English but if you were to learn a different language you would have a very similar problem, and one of the most universal strategies for making that transition is to drill on vocabulary. Once you have built a small vocabulary then you can expand it using a dictionary.
The real message behind someone saying RTFM is that there are so many educational and search resources now that asking some rando on the Internet to rewrite a Howto on the fly is lazy. Simply typing the exact same question into Google will bring up a kickstarter set of vocabulary and resources. If you actually do this your question will often answer itself, and if it doesn’t and you start by pointing out why your efforts failed to help you with your specific problem and use the vocabulary (at least briefly) that your research turned up to guide the reader toward where your problem is, you should get less RTFM responses.
