Okay well - this page is very cluttered with different things like “New Users! Start here!” which loops you to a page that shows it’s Wiki but an error pops open that says it’s old and that I should click to go to the updated page which wallah - is right back to this page. The moderator has seemingly scolded me for saying that this is a nightmare and closed teh comments.
There is no starting point for a new user that is coming from 10 years of using a macbook and 12 years of using Windows for atotal of 22 years of using a computer. The last time I remember seeing something similar to a command line was when I was 10-12 years old and it’s when we got our first computer - a Gateway 2000. This is also around the last time that I saw the computer that is now on my desk - a ThinkPad.
I’m unable to read through 100’s of pages of documentation for reasons that are of no one on this communities business - and we’ll leave that as it is.
I received this ThinkPad as a gift - and the “Getting Started” Documentation takes you to an install guide. Fedora 33 was already installed.
There is no phone number to call and no way to chat with anyone. I’ve called Lenovo a dozen times and I end up in an ever ending loop which ultimately ends at microsoft support every single time.
I don’t know where else to post and I assume that this too, just like the last post, will be blocked.
This is my last shot before I return the Lenovo and report to the people that i"ve told i’m goign to try open source that they can give it a crack - but it took me two weeks to realize that i needed to just return the lenovo and put my head down as a failed Macbook for life user.
It’s noteworthy that I’m tryign to do the following:
a.) watch a Youtube video for instructions. It fires back an error when I try to and i was told by the Reddit communithy that all I have to do is enable RPM Fusion. HOW!!! So I try to do that and it says I need tos witch users or that i don’t have priveledges to do this and that. At any rate, way too complicated to watch. a. video. on. youtube…
b.) install VirtualBox so I can follow a Udemy course on how to use this. Lets’ start with cracking the Youtube video code and see if we can move onto day 11. Thanks.
Hi Liam. I’m sorry you’re having a bad experience. I recognize that you’re frustrated, but I think in retrospect you might agree that your first post is hard for us to do anything constructive with — it’s just a negative comment without anything actionable. I think the moderators did the right thing there.
The “start here” loop you’re in here is meant to help you get started with this Q&A site, not with using Fedora Workstation in general. It sounds like that’s really what you are having problems with. But other than that it’s unclear and frustrating, I’m not sure how we can help you right now, because your post doesn’t make it clear exactly what you’re having problems with and what you’re trying to accomplish.
We can definitely help you get started here. It’s okay to even have complaints — we know it’s not perfect — but we need something specific to go on. Can you describe what you are trying to do and where you are getting blocked?
Did you watch the welcome video when you first logged in? Did that help?
Hey @liamdev but again you are ranting without describing your issue.
It’s pretty fine that you have issues and questions the first time you use a new system.
I bet that if I put my daughter in front of a Mac, she start complaining that she is unable to use the system.
Olkay so I think you’re the gentleman that posted the unboxing youtube video. I was genuinely excited for you and excited to check this whole thing out. I’m having a hard time being anything but negative right now. If that was your video, you ended it by saying “okay well now i’m going to encrypt…” named a couple of things and ended with “but youd ont’ want to watch me do that b/c that’s boring…” To me, that’s actually the starting point and main point I’d like to make here.
Right well yous ay that the community is huge and open yet with all due respect, this is one of the least user friendly and/or intuitive “forums” i’ve ever been on and again - I truly don’t mean any disrespect to you but I’m shocked i’m even able to get ahold of you guys… My two other options so far have seemingly been limited to a.) Reddit b.) Lenovo and c.) Udemy courses.
The problem is this. I don’t know how to use this RPM Fusion - which someone told me that I need to enable in order to watch a video on Youtube using Firefox on Fedora 33.
The next problem is that I don’t know how to download VirtualBox.
The #start-here category (which you are complaining about) links to an FAQ, which again links to instructions from Fedora Docs. Please follow those and let us know excatly where the problem is, without ranting please.
You can also go where rpmfusion is coming from and read their first-hand instructions at https://rpmfusion.org/
Sorry, I didn’t finish b/c I was distracted by that unreasonable/unfair daughter answer. Reddit users have been fairly helpful but I can only ask for very siloed things - at which point they tell me to do this and do that - with absolutely no direction of how to do this and do that. Meaning enable RPM fusion. Okay, HOW? i type RPM fusion in the search bar and othing comes up. I go to Software and type RPM fusion and nothign comes up. I type in “how to enable RPM FUsion on Linux Fedora 33” on Google search through Mozilla and a youtube video comes up. Great! Let’s check that out. Okay, YOutube video doesn’t work actually I forgot that’s why I need to figure out RPM fusion in the first place. Let’s check out fedora docs and boom - i’m directed here - where evidently people make absurd relationships to belittle new users in the fedora community i.e. telling me that your little kid knows more about this than me. Bravo for a warm welcome.
First, for RPM Fusion (a source of software that Fedora can’t include), have you seen the instructions in our docs at Enabling the RPM Fusion repositories :: Fedora Docs? There are sections for both doing it from the command line and all from the GUI. Please let us know if anything is unclear or doesn’t work.
On VirtualBox — that’s third party software that we don’t have direct control of. Do you have a specific need for VirtualBox? Fedora includes Linux’s built-in virtualization technology called “KVM” (I know, not a great name — not our fault), and we have a simple GUI for using it called “Boxes”. See documentation for that at Installing virtual operating systems with GNOME Boxes :: Fedora Docs — and again, let us know if you get stuck. (Or, if you do have a specific need for VirtualBox for school or something. We can help you with that too.)
Let’s not argue about Macs, please. I don’t see that leading us anywhere.
Ha okay well I followed another Udemy course without VirtualBox and ended up launching my own private server. i was thent old by the reddit community that it was incredibly dangerous to do that and to wipe out my computer. MInd you, this is the second time that the reddit community told me to reboot/reinstall Fedora on this lenovo b/c i was facing security threat dangers. I don’t know what kernel 5.10.x is I hardly know what a repo is and i’ve never had to use a Virtualization tool.
List to me, I am the person that you’re claiming can easily use Fedora 33; a regular, everyday user of either a Macbook or Windows operating system. Your responses with the assumption that I know what kernel 5.10.x, virtulatizatino solutions, Gnome Boxes and ‘virt-manager’ are so immeasurably unreasonable.
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That tells me hackers will get into your system don’t even nbother reading past this warning sign. If this whole process is to be going throguh documentation A-Z then a.) I understand why Steve Jobs would literally go absolutely insane on people and Z.) that’ll be a wrap for giving this a go… not even joking if this is all chat and email support w/ documentation then i’m returning this laptop b/c without videos or a human being to actually speak with - i’m not entertaining this system. I have 20 different apps that I communicate on nearly 15 emails and four (4) projects to 10 projects at any given time. I don’t have the luxury of having time time rifle through 100’s of pages of documentation. If there ins’t an up to date, relevant youtube video walk through of this then i’m out. And regarding why I’m using VirtualBox - ONLY Becuase that’s what the people who ahve courses on Udemy that cover linux and how to use it for beginners have posted and I assume they use this understanding most people are coming from Mac.
Again, I know you’re frustrated, but just as we are doing for you please read others’ comments assuming good intent. I don’t think that @alciregi is saying that anyone is smarter than anyone else, just that unfamiliar things are not always obvious to someone who hasn’t seen it before — and that’s natural and not bad.
And, you are right — some of this stuff is so familiar to us that it’s easy to forget that it’s not common knowledge. I imagine that’s very frustrating on Reddit, where people are often very dismissive of newbies. I assure you, we strive to be better than that here.
Software that is in RPM Fusion is not necessary bad, but that disclaimer is also accurate. The good news is that you don’t actually need to enable it for most functionality. If you’re not blocked by anything in particular that we can’t legally or by open source license include in Fedora, don’t worry about it even though some guide as it as a first step.
As for slick YouTube guides — I’d love to have those too, but remember this whole thing is put together as a community effort. There are thousands of people who put in their time, and we have some corporate sponsors, but we don’t even have a tiny fraction of the budget to do everything we would like to do. We don’t have anyone paid to work on anything like that, and no one I know has any budget to create such a department, even though it would be amazing.
I think you should be able to contact Lenovo support but I don’t know of the extent of the phone coverage. To a large degree, it’s going to be text-based help like this, and another large degree of playing and trying things out. There really is a lot to learn — I won’t downplay that.
I really encourage you to give it a chance and see what you can do. But if you don’t have time to learn a new thing, there isn’t a lot we can do beyond, well, the things we are trying to help with.
What’s happening here is that the commands are getting split in half. The lines in the instructions end with a \ which tells the command line processor to continue to the next line as still one command. That’s why it’s giving you errors. If you type the entire command exactly as given in the instructions, it will work.
But that said, did you try the non-command-line approach first? Learning the command line is totally something you can do, but it sounds like you’ll really want it to be a last resort.
Yes, exactly. Sorry if I was unclear. I was saying that even a system that is famous for being user friendly, if someone hasn’t used it before and this person is accostumed to another system, this person could encounter some issues.
