I guess a sticky post titled « ditching windows, looking to find my way on Linux » would help and new posts about doing that should be forbidden in the community rules/redirected to the sticky post 😇

But it’s also important to welcome properly newcomers.

I like seeing the posts of people finding comfort with their new linux installs even tho they might appear a couple of times.

Linux is still considered a niche so the most likelihood of the newer folk appearing is higher then the more experienced ones. Also I wasn’t always experienced and if it wasn’t for newbie friendly content I wouldn’t be here helping other people as well.

After all, information doesn’t spawn out of thin air, it requires someone to carry and distribute it so that other people become also educated in those ways.

Which is way I find weird finding some people say “people are dumb they should do x, y or z cause its better” but then they don’t provide any information and expect others to also know what they already know/have learned recently.

In conclusion, sharing is caring and I don’t mind people sharing their experiences which also helps others on the same situation.

Maybe it bothers you more because your Lemmy feed is not as well populated with interesting posts as you would hope?

I do wish people would check the post history here before asking “what distro should I use.” Or search the web for “how to pick a Linux distro in 2024” there are no shortage of those, although to be fair to them, you are a lot more likely nowadays to find nothing but AI-generated bullshit.

Like this commenter here mentions, there are pinned posts saying “share the story of how you met your distro.” I would love it if moderators could take posts and turn them into comments on pinned posts like "share. But we don’t have that as far as I know, so what can you do but contribute a patch to the Lemmy software maintainers, or else just deal with the noise.

I feel the same way. Most of the feedback on your post seems to be from newbies who like it, so maybe we should start a new community for us advanced folks instead of referring everyone to !linux4noobs@lemmy.world.

Yes.

These posts are the “I voted for peace” decorative lapel button of the '60s and '70s. These posts were the leading edge in the '90s and a little of the '00s.

Now they’re tiresome. It’s like people who’ve come late to the party and want their fanfare; people who came last in the race and proclaim themselves the leaders. The race is over, the banners are down, the spotlight’s off and the newsmedia’s gone home. No need to proclaim victory, nor virtue-signal inclusion in a group that isn’t exclusive.

Positivity is good. I would rather see 100 positive posts than one negative one, even if there’s a lot of redundancy. It helps encourage others to switch to Linux, which is good.

For me I’d rather people post something over nothing even if it’s the same post to us it’s clearly something the poster felt was important to them.

I will install Windows and remove it again just to annoy you.

They all get a downvote from me.

I like them as long as they’re describing their experience and/or motivation behind the step.

What I don’t like is posts that are simply bashing on Windows (because apparently it’s cool?) and praising Linux like it’s some sort of silver bullet. Share your negative experiences and describe hoops and workarounds you had to jump through to make Linux work for you. Or describe why it didn’t work out for you and why you’re back to Windows (and then, dear commenters, don’t flame the guy).

This was a solved problem on other sites via wikis and weekly threads. There’s no value in another “what distro should I use?” post. It’s great that people want to contribute, but there should be a more centralized resource we can refer people to where people can focus this energy.

As for the Windows threads, they’ve been a staple of every Linux-focused community for as long as I’ve been browsing them. I guess if it makes people feel better then I suppose that’s enough of a reason to keep them around.

I’ve said this sentiment before, but I’ll repeat it here.

If you’re a pro uber-1337 Gamer, you probably have over 1TiB of storage available. Keeping 64 or even 100GiB of space free for a Windows install isn’t really going to break the bank. IMO it’s worth keeping a Windows 10 install around just in case you need to use something that only runs on Windows, or some game really doesn’t agree with Linux. Nuking a Windows install feels a bit reckless, especially considering the pain of installing it and getting licenses set up.

Part of me worries that these posts are making it seem that deleting your Windows install is some kind of “rite of passage” people have to go through, even though I bet many devout Linux users here still have a Windows install “just in case”.

I would like to see a sticky “shill your distro” and/or “guide to recommended distros for a new user” thread. Most people making those threads are usually fine with something like Mint, Ubuntu, Pop or Fedora, and replies sometimes get into technical debate or people shilling their favorite distro (which would be better served in a dedicated thread).

However, we’re only a small community here, so most activity is good activity, as long as we don’t repeat the exact same posts over and over.

I feel like limiting or discouraging them would really hurt adoption.

Many times people share their use cases.

If someone with similar use cases finds out “wait, it us possible for me yo use Linux?” they could become tomorrow’s post.

Not at all. You seem to think there’s a more appropriate forum for people to join the Linux community, and introduces. Where is that? And how do new Linux users find it? Knowing nothing about Linux distros, where should they ask about distros? Distrowatch catalogs 274 distributions - how do newbies navigate those?

I do think having a “which distro” stickie or sidebar would be handy, but I don’t at all mind the “I ditched Windows” posts. It beats random venting, ranting, and flame wars.

I don’t think it’s anyone’s job to make sure newcomers do not leave Linux because “muh post was removed”. If you can’t take 2 minutes to find the correct sub to post your question, you won’t be able to use Linux either.

Lemmy has this problem where everything is upvoted no matter what. I’ve posted some dumb questions myself expecting them to get removed but they received upvotes instead. I’m thinking its either bots to drive engagement or people are very welcoming here or they’re just happy that Lemmy isn’t dead yet so they’ll upvote anything.