In the mailing list and usenet days, people would tell you to RTFM if your question was answered anywhere in the documentation, and Linux was a thousand times harder to install back then. Never mind DMAs and IRQs, you had to manually write config files specifying the geometry and refresh rate of your monitor.
people would tell you to RTFM if your question was answered anywhere in the documentation
Modern day internet techies will snear at you for using AI assist tools when setting up an environment. But by god, do these agents not save me endless hours of trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls of system configuration.
RTFM only works when the documentation is high quality and easy to follow. Better yet, if you know the manual so well, just link me to the damned chapter I’m supposed to focus in on. I’m trying to set up an *arr stack, not become a sysadmin team lead at a Fortune 500 company.
Never mind DMAs and IRQs, you had to manually write config files specifying the geometry and refresh rate of your monitor.
In fairness, a lot of those config files were relatively easy to write. I’ll take that over hunting through forty different nearly-identical screens in a custom configured BIOS.
I’ve been using a local Qwen3.8 model as a NixOS sysadmin lately for a non-critical VPS. So far, it has been working surprisingly well! I guess it’s easier for AI agents to gather context when the whole system and apps are defined in code, and immutable when applied.
Later you had to uninstall pulse audio so sound worked. And recompile WIFI drivers with every Kernel update. Today though I can very much relate I don’t want my OS to need more attention than maybe rebooting for updates once a month. That’s what made macOS successful. Linux Desktop has become usable in that regard, now even vsync sometimes works.
And here I am rebooting windows every few days because it gets unstable. Meanwhile the Linux VM I have running on that very same windows keeps on chugging like clockwork.
In the mailing list and usenet days, people would tell you to RTFM if your question was answered anywhere in the documentation, and Linux was a thousand times harder to install back then. Never mind DMAs and IRQs, you had to manually write config files specifying the geometry and refresh rate of your monitor.
I’m in the openbsd mailing list and they still do that, it’s fantastic
Ahhh that brings me back to 2005 and my first time installing gentoo
Modern day internet techies will snear at you for using AI assist tools when setting up an environment. But by god, do these agents not save me endless hours of trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls of system configuration.
RTFM only works when the documentation is high quality and easy to follow. Better yet, if you know the manual so well, just link me to the damned chapter I’m supposed to focus in on. I’m trying to set up an *arr stack, not become a sysadmin team lead at a Fortune 500 company.
In fairness, a lot of those config files were relatively easy to write. I’ll take that over hunting through forty different nearly-identical screens in a custom configured BIOS.
You can search the ancient scrolls for an eternity or consult the all knowing shoggoth that may melt your brain or lie.
Listen, I’m not saying Ya hai kadishtu ep r’luh-eeh Nyogtha eeh, s’uhn-ngh athg li’hee orr’e syha’h. But I get it.
K’yarnak li llll kadishtu, ngnah ah’lw’nafh Iiahe azathoth?
More and more people in hooded robes with star-symbols on their foreheads are saying it.
I miss the freebsd handbook
I’ve been using a local Qwen3.8 model as a NixOS sysadmin lately for a non-critical VPS. So far, it has been working surprisingly well! I guess it’s easier for AI agents to gather context when the whole system and apps are defined in code, and immutable when applied.
Later you had to uninstall pulse audio so sound worked. And recompile WIFI drivers with every Kernel update. Today though I can very much relate I don’t want my OS to need more attention than maybe rebooting for updates once a month. That’s what made macOS successful. Linux Desktop has become usable in that regard, now even vsync sometimes works.
MacOS has the advantage (that the other OSes don’t) of being developed in house by the same company that designs the hardware.
And here I am rebooting windows every few days because it gets unstable. Meanwhile the Linux VM I have running on that very same windows keeps on chugging like clockwork.
wait you did? aww writing bootdisks was my favorite part of the 286 era.
Wait most people don’t have to do this still?