As someone who is way into the idea of Linux, wants to switch, and is very gun-shy about the million little programs and extensions I might not be able to replace, let me tell you what is required of anybody who is actually genuine in their desire to see Linux gain the traction it deserves:

Don’t ever tell anybody to read the manual again. Just answer the god damn question. It’s good when answers to basic, common problems are peppered around the internet like that; it’s dumb and wrong and weird to think of it as a thing to be avoided. If you’d like to put a link to the part of the manual where the questioner could have looked to find it, that’s cool, too. Don’t just leave the link–there’s a good chance they didn’t understand it and that’s why they’re asking. Maybe they just want a person-answer instead of a reference-manual-answer, and it’s good when the answer exists in both forms. Every answered question is a contribution.

I would go even further: the version of reality where Linux beats Windows and ushers in an era of community-centric open source dominance is populated by a Linux community that considers “rtfm”, “pebcac”, etc to be borderline bannable offenses. If you are a small, weak person, and want Linux to be your way of thinking you’re better than other people, you’ll drive question-askers away, back to Inferiority Land, using your knowledge to dunk on them instead of help them, and call it a win. These are the ugly bridge trolls, who may as well be paid Microsoft employees, keeping people away from your community, and a serious change of pace might yield much smoother adoption. At the very least, the community owes it to their own work to see how much smoother.

As someone considering the switch seriously, the knowledge that I may have to deal with people like that is absolutely, 100% a factor, and I am someone who has no qualms about telling someone on the internet to fuck off, so it’s gonna be more of an issue for many others who are more conflict-averse.

The Linux community needs to take very seriously whether it actually wants increased open source adoption, or if it wants to remain a tiny minority so that it has a nice, large majority to feel better than.

You’re quite late. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’ve got Windows 11 now. There are people using it. Not me, but people.