Why I hate Linux users
If you're smug and elitist about something, you should be able to back it up.
Linux users aren't that. That's what's funny: they're very often very much so out of their depth in terms of any topic.
Getting mad at people because they don't know the intricacies of desktop Linux is the funniest shit. So many people in different fields have specialized knowledge and things that are obvious to them aren't even slightly obvious to someone else. Electrical engineers or car mechanics or five-star chefs or even cloud engineer guys don't expect the average person to have deep familiarity with their profession, but Linux users do.
I'm talking about desktop Linux distros by the way: a tiny percentage of Linux "users" as a whole. The story often goes that some guy with middling tech knowledge and a general distrust of racial minorities gets sick of what they view as Windows spyware and decide to wipe their disk clean. This type of White Dude is almost certainly a Redditor, and so they happily dive into a community full of similarly thinking, smug Linux users that confirm their biases: they're part of the enlightened 1% that knows better than lowly Windows sheep.
This is not an exaggeration -- while they may not use this language, a huge amount of Linux users wholeheartedly believe this. And I could forgive it IF they backed it up with some level of intimate knowledge with how computers work or even how LINUX works, but they don't have shit! They install Arch Linux following its corresponding wiki guide and think they've done literally anything of value by bootstrapping a system and chrooting into it because the distro in question isn't well-engineered enough to develop a proper installer. If you ask them about basic administrative Linux tools -- stuff like containers, virtual machines, firewall rules, etc., they will draw a blank or refer to copy pasting from the aforementioned Arch Wiki.
Linux elitism is so widespread on the Internet, but here's the thing:
Elitism is okay sometimes if you know what the fuck you're talking about.
Louis Rossmann is an incredibly intelligent guy. When he talks about soldering, schematics, or repairs, you listen because he knows his shit and knows it better than you or I. He has a lot of bullshit takes, but at the end of the day I can respect his confidence in his craft because he's incredibly good at it.
Louis earned his air of elitism.
There are a million guys like this, and while I think we should all be a bit kinder, they're fiercely intelligent.
Arch Linux user #1337 is not particularly unique. They don't have interesting knowledge of Linux, they don't really do anything interesting with their computer, and they don't contribute code back upstream or help build packages. They're not just elitist -- they have absolutely no meaningful skills pertinent to the thing they're gassing up! To me, this is absolutely reprehensible.
Outside of the elitism, a large chunk of Linux users are deeply disconnected from the ethics that formed the original free software movement. (GNU slash) Linux was always a politically charged statement in favor of community-based development and "hacker-first" culture -- one where everyone pitched in and helped each other and corporations were kept in line. This ethic led to the formation of the GPL and similar free software licenses. It's absolutely hilarious to me that a huge amount of Linux-adjacent guys on the Internet will insist there's no "politics" in Linux and open source and that it's just a matter of "meritocracy".
It is deeply depressing to me that a free culture cultivated by people over the years has been corrupted by a certain kind of white guy with too much time on their hands that uses it to reinforce their reactionary sentiments.
A lot of Linux users are also just incredibly insulated and just do not understand other operating systems or ecosystems. The rest of the world has been shell-shocked by Apple silicon in recent years, but Linux users will stare at you with wide eyes baffled that you don't pick up a ten-year old ThinkPad instead of a MacBook Air. They scream their ass off over Windows Update, but have never EVER looked into group policy tweaks in their life. There's a surface-level knowledge about everything else that just gets on my nerves.
Apple users can be smug on some level because a lot of their products are just that fucking good. iPhone users can deservedly wear a cheeky grin gushing about the smooth UI and the way the CPU threads ensure they stay smooth under load. They can gush about Mac keyboards and trackpads and displays. Windows users can excitedly partake in a massive software ecosystem and all the games they want. What can Desktop Linux users do? We don't have incredible purpose-built laptops. All of the games we can play are built for Windows. There's a level of smugness that just isn't appropriate for where this platform is currently.
None of this is to discourage anyone from trying Linux and learning to use it. It's a fun time sink and if you play your cards right it can translate into real-world knowledge and skills. But PLEASE drop the superiority complex over people.
Just understand everyone has their niche and be kind. Leave these bubbles of elitism and these insulated, reactionary belief systems. Stop thinking everyone around you is a blue-pilled NPC sheep like we're in the Matrix. Grow up.