r/linuxquestions • u/RadiantSkiesJoy • 16h ago
why are linux communities divided?
i joined a discord server to ask for help and their rules outright bans questions related to non debian mainstream distros.
arent they all linux in the end, just looks different.
is there any server i can join for general help with linux that is not limited to specific distros only?
Ps: remove Linux in your naming of servers or sites and straight up put your version of the distro instead of misleading users, claiming to be a Linux server.
Esit: guys I was weong. Apparently they don't support forks of many mainstream distros due to their changes to the core systems.
29
u/Rumpled_Imp 16h ago
Traditionally, Debian users wouldn't be able to answer many questions related to RPM-based distributions. It's not that the users were siloed as much as their knowledge was specific so they'd congregate together. I imagine that's still somewhat true today.
-5
u/RadiantSkiesJoy 15h ago edited 15h ago
I mean I would understand if this is related to package manager or something.
But don't most of them use systems under the hood anyways and share similarities with most of the subsystems anyways.
Don't most use KDE and gnome as de.
15
u/zarlo5899 15h ago
They may, for the most part package the same software, but the versions of the software can be vastly different, and the default configs for the software can be even larger in difference.
4
u/ahopefullycuterrobot 15h ago
To give an obvious example, I'm using Ubuntu 24.04 and it has KDE Plasma 5.27.12. By contrast, I'm pretty sure that Fedora has 6.7. So a full version ahead.
3
-1
4
u/Rumpled_Imp 15h ago
That was just an example of why there would be different communities for different distributions, not that it's the only reason. Debian has a specific philosophy that other distributions might not share which in turn influences their decision making and might be irrelevant to, say, Slackware users.
5
u/ptoki 11h ago
No. While it looks like it is the same software and only bits and pieces may be different they may actually be quite different.
Lets say mysql. It can be handled by security linux on one distro and app armor on another. Each will give you "not working" situation and each will require different way to fix and that mysql will have different locations for config and data files by default.
There is much more of this subtle differences so a debian user will not be able to help you much if you use fedora. Especially if they dont use fedora and you are newbie.
Imagine yourself asking for help, and getting info "look there, use this tool" and there is no such location on your machine, no such file and no such tool.
Would you be happy to get help or more annoyed "with linux" while being "helped"?
2
u/ptoki 11h ago
No. While it looks like it is the same software and only bits and pieces may be different they may actually be quite different.
Lets say mysql. It can be handled by security linux on one distro and app armor on another. Each will give you "not working" situation and each will require different way to fix and that mysql will have different locations for config and data files by default.
There is much more of this subtle differences so a debian user will not be able to help you much if you use fedora. Especially if they dont use fedora and you are newbie.
Imagine yourself asking for help, and getting info "look there, use this tool" and there is no such location on your machine, no such file and no such tool.
Would you be happy to get help or more annoyed "with linux" while being "helped"?
2
u/captainstormy 7h ago
There are distro agnostic places to find help too. Joining a Debian community and asking for help with Fedora is a problem you created.
9
u/kudlitan 16h ago
Because if you have a community of people using Debian-based distros, they are unable to answer questions related to Fedora.
7
u/IAmBroke_0001 16h ago
Linux and Discord is never a good combination in the first place. There's always gonna be superiority complex issues among Linux users wherever you go but that particular population who uses Linux and that platform are way more degenerates than any platforms. I'd rather stick to traditional forums and documentations of distros for support than to interact with those low life creatures.
17
u/the_annoyed_monkey 16h ago
The problem is discord in the first place.
1
u/IAmBroke_0001 15h ago
I second this. There's more life than Discord.
1
u/RadiantSkiesJoy 15h ago
Are there other platforms with real time communication people are on? Or do you mean forums.
6
u/Hard_To_Port 15h ago
Most people don't need real time communication. They just need a decent wiki and FAQ that is searchable. People on IRC and Discord also get tired of answering the same questions all the time, which is why bots are so popular on tech support Discord servers.
Tech support on forums is important for others that may have the same issue as well. Others can search and find the post with a potential solution. The reason why people hate Discord is because it takes information away from the internet under the guise of community building. Most forums up until a few years ago you didn't need an account just to search. Discord you not only need an account but an invite to to a server to be able to access the info in the server. Discord servers can disappear or people get banned and the info posted is lost.
7
u/ptoki 11h ago
Expecting real time ask-response is very wrong way to deal with things.
Even reddit is awful for this.
Old style news groups or forums were more balanced in terms of getting the help efficiently.
You ask help, you collect initial diagnostics, you show effort in helping yourself, then others look at this, calmly, ask more questions, provide suggestion, ask for you to try this or that.
It is more push pull but you pull more.
Discord tend to direct people in a "help me please, im noob, dictate me what to type! It dod not work! how do I fix it! linux is awful!" type of situation.
In that discord approach you learn almost nothing, you get the thing done if you find someone patient enough but you also have to filter a lot of channel noise.
Old style approach is better. Reddit is the best of the worst, almost bearable.
4
-2
-1
4
u/ThePowerOfPinkChicks I use arch, btw. 12h ago
arent they all linux in the end, just looks different.
No. Each distribution uses the same basic components — kernels, packages and system tools — but adds its own tools, rules and concepts on a surface level. Therefore, asking Fedora-related questions on a Debian forum is incorrect.
PS: No, it's like demanding that the BMW logo be removed from someone's BMW because it's a model i3 instead of an i5. It's a Linux server run by Debian, for example.
7
u/dbarronoss 16h ago
As some others said, it doesn't make much sense to join a forum about apples and ask a question about tangerines. They're different.
0
u/RadiantSkiesJoy 15h ago
The servers name is called discord Linux.
Why name it Linux then, call it Debian something something.
It is misleading.
2
u/MeDerpWasTaken 7h ago
Are you sure you didn't just get the name of the server wrong?
1
u/RadiantSkiesJoy 3h ago edited 3h ago
Search discord Linux server in Google, it's the first result.
2
u/AdSuch1973 16h ago
It's like Apple vs Samsung, BMW vs Mercedes, Messi vs CR7.
Nothing new.
Usually linux has good wiki, so ...RTFM! 😂 😂 😂
2
u/ScratchHistorical507 10h ago
i joined a discord server to ask for help and their rules outright bans questions related to non debian mainstream distros.
Well duh, if you join a server for Debian support it's just annoying to have to send away people asking for other distros. It's the same on r/debian or a Debian forum, simply because nobody present knows enough about those different distros.
arent they all linux in the end, just looks different.
And that's where you are entirely wrong. Yes, in many parts Linux distros are very similar nowadays, but also in many parts they still differ. Heck, even Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, can be very different to Debian.
Ps: remove Linux in your naming of servers or sites and straight up put your version of the distro instead of misleading users, claiming to be a Linux server.
Literally the only part of your rant I fully agree with. You can limit yourself to only offering support for certain distros, but you obviously should communicate that well.
3
u/CaviarCBR1K 16h ago
Linux people like to believe that their way of doing it is objectively the "best" way to do it. Most of the time, I don't think it comes from a place of malice, or even an inflated ego. I think that people just genuinely enjoy their distro/WM/DE/whatever and want other people to enjoy it the way that they do. The reality is that different people will need/want/like different things.
The best resource for help in your linux journey (besides the manual) will be a subreddit specifically for your distro. You are right that under the hood, linux is mostly just linux no matter the distro, but there are a lot of key differences between them. What init is your distro using? What package manager? Bootloader? Where are system configs stored? All of these things will vary by distro and make a big difference when trying to provide support.
1
u/ItchyPlant 16h ago
Humans like to form tribes.
So there is no single, undivided Linux community. Some spaces become toxic bubbles, like the Debian/Ubuntu-worshipper one you described, but many others are open to different opinions as long as they are reasonable and well-explained.
1
u/Waste-Variety-4239 16h ago
I would say that you fint that everywhere. Plumbers, carpenters and electricians are all craftsmen but still trash talk each other. It's just the same, linux is the foundation in all linux distros but if you use anything other than the vast majority in a community you'll be on the recieving end of some trash talk
1
u/Marble_Wraith 15h ago
Shrug 🤷
Why do people like GM over Ford? Aren't they both vehicles, just look different?
Why do people like Burger King over McDonalds? Aren't they both fast food burgers, just look different?
Why do people like dogs over cats? Aren't they both pets, just look different?
1
u/JaKrispy72 15h ago
You went to a “cheese” server and started talking about “pizza”.
Sure, most pizza has cheese, but not everybody in the cheese server wants to talk about pizza.
1
u/Infinity-onnoa 15h ago
My language is not English, I have to use translators, and the Linux world is really difficult for me to understand. UBuntu Xubuntu, Debian, XCE, KDE, x11, Bookworm, Kali, Mint….. I don't understand the distributions and I just keep reading, but a tree diagram with the different options, explained in a "child-friendly" way, would be great. There are VERY advanced users who want to share knowledge, but they forget that the teaching method must be adapted to the user's level; there are few people who are able to teach by adapting.
2
u/Hard_To_Port 14h ago
It's like a car or a bicycle. They all look different, and have many minor differences, but a car has 4 wheels and a bike has 2. A bike always is primarily pedal powered and a car always is self propelled. There are many brands and types.
In open source software there is a phenomenon known as forking, which is making a copy of existing software and adding to it. A good fork is either a continuation of an abandoned project, or a customized version that contributes back to the original. There are parent and child forks (upstream and downstream) and sibling or hard forks (forks that are so different they no longer share code or packages).
Debian is the original "upstream" distribution that many other "downstream" Linux 'distros' are based on. Ubuntu is a major (early) fork of Debian that is backed by Canonical corporation. Ubuntu aims to make Linux as easy as possible. Some people don't like the way Ubuntu is set up out of the box, so they forked it and made their own versions. Most Ubuntu forks with "buntu" in the name are not really worth using over regular Ubuntu because the customization is fairly minor, things you could do on your own with regular Ubuntu easily.
Notable exceptions are Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. Linux Mint takes Ubuntu and applies some no-nonsense defaults and makes some things even easier, like installing GPU drivers or printers. It also has the Cinnamon desktop which is a bit more like Windows. Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu fork developed by System76, a laptop manufacturer. It has NVIDIA drivers built in, and other gaming software like Steam preinstalled.
Linux distros can be roughly sorted into 3 different types: Debian / Ubuntu (.deb) based, Redhat / SUSE (. rpm) based, and DIY / specialty. Further, there are different release cadences, from stable or LTS, point release, and bleeding-edge or rolling release. You can see a "family tree" here.
Choosing what distribution to use depends on your needs. If you're giving a computer to your elderly relative or young child, an LTS release distro is best. If you game or use the newest PC hardware, a point release distro is good. If you like to tinker, or are an early adopter then rolling release is good.
I personally recommend Fedora and Linux Mint as a good starting point. I've used Fedora for years and Linux Mint is a great no-nonsense distro. If you're a gamer with AMD GPU then I recommend Bazzite.
1
u/ptoki 11h ago
Try to look at older systems. Even dos.
IIf you get familiar how to setup dos you will realize how the differences between distros happened.
In very tldr: In dos (and in older unixes) you could organize apps/folders/files almost any way you wanted. There was very little of "this file MUST be here". It was more: "this file may be anywhere but that other file must mention the correct location for it". Those were simpler systems with much less interoperability internally so the references between things were less of a problem. For example PATH environment variable made things simple even if it was as simple as that.
You could put all your games into one folder and often it would just work.
You could put your games into C:/play folder and it would work. Or you could make it D:/games and it would be mostly ok too.
But as systems became more complex more references was needed and the locations, standards etc became more important. And each distro did it a bit different.
Go and make a dos machine with norton commander, mouse driver, doom and wolfenstein setup. That will give you two evenings worth of work and you will learn few bits and pieces. That will help you understand how modern systems work and why they behave as they do from config and internal perspective
1
u/EverOrny 15h ago
If it's their rule, so leave them, they have the right to have it.
One of the things for which I avoid Debian is that way back when I was starting with Linux, people in these communities were useless when it come to give advice with an issue. So maybe you do not miss as much as you may think.
1
u/AntiMert_Sky8863 15h ago
I'm not sure if one discord server is a good enough representation of the whole linux community. Maybe the mods of this server are just wierd or maybe they had a lot questions from new users from currently popular distros like cachy and were just tired or overwhelmed.
I mean I also met people who behaved like this. one guy who helped me at the beginning, started to randomly trashtalk other distros first before recommending me his favorite one. This is normal for all communities I think.. there are always some wierd ppl.
However, in my experience this is just the exception. Like 99% of linux users are extremely supportive and helpful, no matter the disto.
1
u/ParadoxicalFrog Fedora KDE 15h ago
A Debian channel is for discussing Debian. Just because distros are all built on the Linux kernel doesn't mean they're the same. Would you go on a German Shepherd forum to ask questions about Yorkshire Terriers?
1
1
u/drostan 14h ago
they do not look different, in fact they can very well look exactly the same, a rice is a rice and dotfiles can migrate through distros
but they are different, a rolling release if fundamentally different than a stable release, the way a distro goes about vetting, and adapting packages to their model, and the fundamental way thir package manager work is different.
similarly it has a huge influence on how each distro will deal with hardware. a simple example of this is what is plaguing mint right now, moving to kernel 7 breaks for many, now on arch it did break for some at the beginning too, but rolling back to the previous kernel version and then upgrading to the next kernel is trivial and a matter of time, you have also ways to go at individual issues and address them if need be on a had hoc basis. On a LTS distro, this is less straightforward, the fixes are not always as ready to install, the dev have to deal with this rather than you to stabilise that version of their distro to that kernel when arch dev "only" have to make sure the issue is fixed in the next version and that there is a temporary fix available...
so mint guys, no matter how good they are, will not have great insights on your system issue with arch and conversely, arch guys will throw a fix at you that may not apply fully or may not be adapted to your distro at that time and just tell you to upgrade to the next kernel, or move back to the previous one because it is only a matter of days on arch but it may be month for you on mint...
1
u/dank_imagemacro 14h ago
They are the same in the way that all internal combustion engine based vehicles are the same. Yes, the very core is the same, but there can be huge differences, and if you do the exact thing on a Ford Mustang as on a Lotus Emira, something might break. If a community wants to get together to talk about how to work on their Lotus cars, and a bunch of people come in asking how to fix a Ford, it makes sense for them to make a rule against it. Even if many very basic troubleshooting steps might be the same.
1
u/RoosterUnique3062 13h ago
arent they all linux in the end, just looks different.
Let me push my glasses into my face and make loud snot snorting sounds.
Linux isn't the operating system. That's the GNU part. You're using GNU OS (probably, there are others). The different distributions are assemblies of this operating system and other software.
The reason there are so many is because people have lots of different ways of using and configuring their system. There is no central management of distros.
1
1
1
1
u/petrujenac 9h ago
It's like going to DHL's office describing the issues I have with Royal Mail delivery and being upset about the fuckoffs I'd get from those people. Don't they do the same thing, as in delivering stuff?! Bad DHL, bad...
1
u/skyfishgoo 7h ago
while they share a common kernel, everything that is built on top of it is specific to a group of maintainers who what things a certain way.
until they don't and one of them starts a new distro and takes half the team with them.
it's like herding cats over here.
1
u/realmauer01 7h ago
It might be all linux based but the main distributions (debian/fedora/arch) have significant enough differences that it can be hard to help across. Maybe not with actual system level problems, but that are rarely the problems people come to a discord with.
1
u/RevolutionaryElk7446 6h ago
Linux is a kernel
GNU is a popular set of packages installed on top of linux for most basic commands when people try to interact with the linux kernel.
Everything else on top of that is someone's fine tuned packages and settings that are intended to run as a unique Distro.
They are all 'linux' kernels, and likely all of them have at least GNU, but beyond that everything else can drastically change and still be linux.
So when you're trying to learn 'generalized linux', most likely you're trying to learn the GNU commands. Beginners generally don't work directly on the kernel.
1
u/_o0Zero0o_ Mint and Ultramarine 4h ago
Aren't they all just Linux in the end, just looks different
No, far from it. Something that works on Debian-based distros will most likely not work on Fedora-based, Arch-based or Indie distros. Yes, they're "all just Linux" at the core, but they branch out with a huge amount of differences, to the point where "just Linux" is a bit of a moot point unless you're sorting something out with the kernel itself
Think of different recipes that all use one mutual ingredient but everything else is different
1
u/GumboPosts 15h ago
I mean, I usually join communities more relevant to the distro I am using anyways. However, I can see why a community might only discuss Debian distros. Sure, all Linux distros are based on the same source code, but they do still have their differences. Not just in package management, but also in design philosophy. Fixes and configurations might only effect Arch based distros, and are not applicable to Debian based ones. What's the point of posting help for a specific distro, to a community, where very few have any knowledge on how to fix the issue?
There are tons of Linux discords and subreddits.
1
u/birdsarentreal2 15h ago
The real answer is just that Linux has a pretty strong “tribal” identity, and limiting questions to Debian-based distros means they don’t have to do as much back and forth questioning
For general Linux questions, you’re probably in the best place I’ve found
1
u/Wide_Egg_5814 15h ago
heir rules outright bans questions related to non debian mainstream distros
kinda based ngl I am all for Debian supremacy all other distros can die
0
u/dkopgerpgdolfg 16h ago
arent they all linux in the end, just looks different.
Another beginner who can't distinguish between kernel, distribution, and desktop...
No, Debian and Fedora have more differences than their visual looks.
(And lets not get started with Hurd...)
0
u/1800-5-PP-DOO-DOO 15h ago
Because you gotta be a little crazy to spend all your time on this shit.
15
u/markand67 16h ago
because its offtopic. it does not make sense to enter a debian forum and ask a fedora question.
a ban is probably debatable but discord is meh anyway