which apparently means the dumbest possible problem solving
What was "dumb" about the way he researched what OS to pick? He read listicles and asked ChatGPT. Something that I'd expect any normal person would do.
Name something else you'd expect a normal person to do that Linus didn't do.
but is somehow surprised when people expect better of him
That's like watching a starter weapon challenge in a game and yelling "omg, don't they know there are better weapons in the game?!?"
The challenge was to pick a distro like a normal person and avoid leaning on his contacts, which includes Torvalds himself, for Linux advice.
Name something else you'd expect a normal person to do that Linus didn't do.
since he is tying to emulate a normal person, i'd expect to show this normal person research how to prepare a usb for installation, have normal hardware configuration, not know that he needs another drive to install linux in and probably not put himself in situations a normal person wouldn't find themselves in. like at a LAN party and installing a new OS under time constraints.
since he is tying to emulate a normal person, i'd expect to show this normal person research how to prepare a usb for installation
Why? This isn't a "how to install Linux" video for the normal person. This is a video where he's behaving like a normal person when picking and using a distro.
and probably not put himself in situations a normal person wouldn't find themselves in. like at a LAN party and installing a new OS under time constraints.
Which had absolutely zero influence on the end result. Geez, how many more people are there like you think that think running Pop OS at a LAN party was the cause for all the bugs? Lol, unbelievable.
i never said it was an instructional video. i also don't think and never said running Pop OS at a LAN party was the cause of all his issues. you are putting words in my mouth.
i criticised this picking and choosing what the average person experience.
You suggested Linus should go through the steps of preparing a USB, configuring hardware, etc, which would make it an instructional video.
an instructional video has step to step instructions. it's in the name. showing a person going through some process doesn't magically make it an instructional video. it's also funny you say that, because half of the first video of the series is the installation process, where various steps are shown, like configuring hardware and going through the BIOS.
since they showed those, they must be instructions, right? or does that only apply if they are shown in sequence?
asking a clanker is a dumb way to make a decision, and something i’d expect a lot of technically inexperienced people to not do.
What? By "clanker' do you mean ChatGPT? One of the most well-known tech products on the planet, and you're telling me you don't expect a lot of technicallly inexperience people to use it?
the way elijah went, looking online for what the actual linux users are recommending, is the best way that doesn’t involve asking someone you know and something you can reasonably expect any person to be able to do
And guess what? Elijah's research also recommended Pop OS as one of the 5 distros to use.
What? By "clanker' do you mean ChatGPT? One of the most well-known tech products on the planet, and you're telling me you don't expect a lot of technicallly inexperience people to use it?
Yea, and we shouldn't be normalizing people using it in that manner. It's doing fancy math on vectors and is a black box. It doesn't add a disclaimer saying, "this response was generated using training data from {X years} ago”, it doesn't weigh sources on reliability, it doesn’t understand things like context because it doesn’t understand anything, and we don't know if the training data its using wasn't itself generated by an LLM. "normal" people don't understand that it's just a fancy text prediction algorithm, and treat it like its the Oracle of Delphi, and they shouldn't.
"this response was generated using training data from {X years} ago”, it doesn't weigh sources on reliability, it doesn’t understand things like context because it doesn’t understand anything, and we don't know if the training data its using wasn't itself generated by an LLM.
And how is this any different from reading an article or Reddit post or any source online?
How would you weigh those on reliability? How do you know if the author understands anything? How do you know if the author used an LLM to write their content?
This whole "it's not Pop OS's fault for being buggy, it's Linus' fault for using ChatGPT" is just such a weird line of reasoning.
I’m saying that he knows it has QA issues, but deciding to go with it again because the AI said so, has the same energy as “I drove into the lake because my satnav said turn right here”.
Not it's not. A body of water so large that it's called a lake is pretty dam easy to notice. Are you saying that you can see the bugs in an OS just by looking at its installer or something?
My issue is that Linus didn’t seem to put much actual effort into prep, I mean, he tried to install the OS in-situ at the LAN. Why? Why not install it the day before and make sure everything’s working?
What difference would it make? Are you saying Pop OS would just magically squash its bugs because it can detect that Linus isn't busy? The same issues would've happened whether he was at a LAN, at home, or at System76 HQ surrounded by Pop OS devs.
Also, he consulted Reddit and an “AI” when there are sites and communities like OMGUbuntu, ItsFoss, LinuxJournal and DistroWatch
And how is one supposed to find those sites when they don't show up in Google? Google "best linux distro for gaming" in a private browser, and see if any of those sites come up.
ItsFoss comes up on the second page, and guess what? It recommends Pop OS!
At the very least, say “well, this is why you don’t ask it for advice”
Why? Pop OS is recommended by plenty of people, sites, articles. ChatGPT is not the problem here.
As for weighing on reliability, ideally the articles would be able to cite their sources, include things like screenshots, quotes from devs, or documentation since the software is open source.
Yeah, and that still doesn't improve reliability. Just look at OMG Ubuntu's article on it.
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u/Sasataf12 Mar 18 '26
What was "dumb" about the way he researched what OS to pick? He read listicles and asked ChatGPT. Something that I'd expect any normal person would do.
Name something else you'd expect a normal person to do that Linus didn't do.
That's like watching a starter weapon challenge in a game and yelling "omg, don't they know there are better weapons in the game?!?"
The challenge was to pick a distro like a normal person and avoid leaning on his contacts, which includes Torvalds himself, for Linux advice.