[Mention your Sex if you are comfortable, I want to see the breakdown between the sexes here]
I just tried to skim through Linux User Manual and it was really quite informative and made me think of reading it someday, but I kinda know for a fact that that someday might never come, but it’s truly a shame though.
Now, you, yes you! Have you read the user manual of your Operating system!
[I am wasting a lot of time on here, so I won’t be engaging or enraging y’all, but this is a good convo topic, isn’t it? (try that on a girl), I just wanted to know how many or how few people read UMs]___
Operating systems come with usermanuals? I’ve read a fair bit of the archwiki and manpages if that counts
Yes I’ve read the entire Unix manual
Sex: Never
But surely you learned some crazy, deep-cut Unix tricks for dealing with the second issue?
It’s on page 1549, fourth paragraph down, “if you’re reading this it’s too late you’re never going to have sex” -Richard Stallman
With all due respect, hell no
I never even thought about the fact that there might be actual manuals for operating systems
I’ll follow-up with the similarly naive: does Windows have a Linux-like thorough user manual? I’ve never even considered it.
I have no clue. Somehow, I expect people to just know things. Not really how it works, is it
I got a manual (or just a general book about DOS?) with my first MSDOS PC, which I read. Otherwise no. I have read books about Linux or specific parts of Windows/Linux, but no “official” manual.
I had no idea they had user manuals.
There’s a manual?
No, because documentation should be more like a dictionary than a novel - it’s written to convey info quickly and accurately, not interestingly. 😆
Next time no need to add on apologetic stuff at the end of your post. People will engage with your post or not, it’s the Internet, it’s fine
There are different kinds of documentation https://diataxis.fr/
Looks like they’re coming over from reddit. Obligatory “women, not girls you incel. Go outside and touch grass”.
Reading an OS manual cover to cover is a collosal waste of time. There are more efficient ways to level up skills. But what do I know with my gIrLy LoGiC.
I usually just read the sections relevant to me.
As useful as they are, user manuals are usually not known for their prose
I’ve never read the manual for an operating system, but I always read the terms of service for websites I sign up for.
I’ll take, “Worst of all possible worlds for $500, Alex.”
It’s not too difficult, in fact many websites reuse the same terms and conditions, which means you can skim it over. I read it for the citations among other reasons, which I do by doing the CTRL + F trick.
I forgot what website it was, but there was a website that put in a large cash prize designed to be claimable by whoever read the terms of service. It took six months before there was ever a winner.
It’s always good to read TOS even though I don’t
I read most of the DOS 6.0 manual around 1994. This was the era of memory management. Computers had 640k of conventional memory despite my PC having 4M of total ram. Every TSR you could extract out to high or extended memory would have a massive impact on the performance of high demand applications (like all my important applications from Lucas Arts…). I managed to get mouse, soundcard, video, and other drivers loaded and still have 580+K of free conventional memory.
Now I design web scale server architectures capable of handling hundreds of requests per second with five 9’s of uptime (for a few years anyway), and that memory management, from back when I was a tween, is still one of my proudest technological achievements. Thanks DOS manual!
I’ve read the Gentoo handbook and Sakaki’s old guide, if that counts.
Reading the entire user manual doesn’t seem relevant. IMO it is a reference work; like reading all of Wikipedia or a dictionary. A manual is not a tutorial, and neither are a wiki reference article database. Most users likely expect a more intuitive design where the proper reference materials either make themselves available when needed or are never needed at all.
I read the entire manual that came with the Macintosh LC that my wife and I bought in 1990.
Oh, now that you mention ancient times, I think I read through the entire DR DOS 6 manual.
Not completely, but back in like 2011 there was an official iOS user guide available as a PDF, and having just gotten an iPad I did go through a decent chunk of it learning about what I could (and couldn’t) do with it.
