From my experience, the tech subbreddits are still mostly free of bullshit. Mostly because they’re way more niche with a much smaller userbase than somewhere like /r/funny, so the people just trying to be edgy about how much they hate Russians don’t go there to unload their crap, and the mods are usually pretty good about enforcing that people stay on topic and act professional. Most subreddits dedicated to specific things have blanket bans on memes/shitposts (or confine them to a megathread or two). I pretty much only use Reddit for the nicher tech stuff these days, mostly asking questions about how to do very specific things namely in Linux, networking, server administration, or programming, and I avoid mainstream subs like the plague. The only reason I don’t use Lemmy for that is because there still aren’t enough people to really fuel that, I can’t ask “how do I configure this very specific Linux software as a daemon in systemd to interact with this code I wrote in ObsecureLang++ and and send these very specific things over my local network to my other devices from my home server?” and expect to actually get an answer or discussion. Yet.
I can’t ask “how do I configure this very specific Linux software as a daemon in systemd to interact with this code I wrote in ObsecureLang++ and and send these very specific things over my local network to my other devices from my home server?” and expect to actually get an answer or discussion. Yet.
Those are the exact kinds of questions I like to try to figure out myself. It’s very satisfying when I can solve the problem, and as a bonus, I learn a lot in the process. Most of what I know has come from doing stuff. I learned Linux basics from trying to run Minecraft on a Chromebook, networking from building my own server cluster (currently containing 11 servers total) at home because I wanted to get away from big tech spyware, server administration also from the same cluster, etc.
Usually, I use the subreddits to announce my projects, answer people’s questions, and see new software releases and such.
Those are the exact kinds of questions I like to try to figure out myself. It’s very satisfying when I can solve the problem, and as a bonus, I learn a lot in the process.
That’s definitely what I do as well. I don’t actually ask someone to just show me how to do the whole thing while I twiddle my thumbs, usually I’m asking about a specific error or weird behaviour in one part of what I’m trying to do, if searching it up doesn’t yield anything helpful. Just having someone else comment on your problem or ask questions is really helpful when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do.
I also use Reddit to discover lesser known stuff, like Linux packages, libraries for programming languages I use, and to read up on techniques other people are using.
Yeah, it can be very helpful, but sometimes, what I’m doing is so insanely specific that searching it doesn’t yield much of anything and there are like 3 people in the world that have even tried it. For example, I got my chromebook that barely anyone owns to run a mainline Linux distro with all the features that aren’t available even in Google’s open source chromium kernels. I was extremely happy when I played a video and sound actually came out of the speakers. That one was a nightmare and took me weeks. I had to develop a whole process for getting these features to work. Compiling a kernel with a custom config, getting systemd to actually boot on that kernel, getting the sound configuration right, connecting pulseaudio with Google’s audio server, etc.
I also use Reddit to discover lesser known stuff, like Linux packages, libraries for programming languages I use, and to read up on techniques other people are using.
You might’ve seen this then (I’m quite proud of it)
It’s also on my gitea if you prefer that: https://gitea.arsenm.dev/Arsen6331/lure. The github repo is just a mirror, but it’s what I share with most people because they don’t want to make an account on my gitea instance.
From my experience, the tech subbreddits are still mostly free of bullshit. Mostly because they’re way more niche with a much smaller userbase than somewhere like /r/funny, so the people just trying to be edgy about how much they hate Russians don’t go there to unload their crap, and the mods are usually pretty good about enforcing that people stay on topic and act professional. Most subreddits dedicated to specific things have blanket bans on memes/shitposts (or confine them to a megathread or two). I pretty much only use Reddit for the nicher tech stuff these days, mostly asking questions about how to do very specific things namely in Linux, networking, server administration, or programming, and I avoid mainstream subs like the plague. The only reason I don’t use Lemmy for that is because there still aren’t enough people to really fuel that, I can’t ask “how do I configure this very specific Linux software as a daemon in systemd to interact with this code I wrote in ObsecureLang++ and and send these very specific things over my local network to my other devices from my home server?” and expect to actually get an answer or discussion. Yet.
Those are the exact kinds of questions I like to try to figure out myself. It’s very satisfying when I can solve the problem, and as a bonus, I learn a lot in the process. Most of what I know has come from doing stuff. I learned Linux basics from trying to run Minecraft on a Chromebook, networking from building my own server cluster (currently containing 11 servers total) at home because I wanted to get away from big tech spyware, server administration also from the same cluster, etc.
Usually, I use the subreddits to announce my projects, answer people’s questions, and see new software releases and such.
That’s definitely what I do as well. I don’t actually ask someone to just show me how to do the whole thing while I twiddle my thumbs, usually I’m asking about a specific error or weird behaviour in one part of what I’m trying to do, if searching it up doesn’t yield anything helpful. Just having someone else comment on your problem or ask questions is really helpful when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do.
I also use Reddit to discover lesser known stuff, like Linux packages, libraries for programming languages I use, and to read up on techniques other people are using.
Yeah, it can be very helpful, but sometimes, what I’m doing is so insanely specific that searching it doesn’t yield much of anything and there are like 3 people in the world that have even tried it. For example, I got my chromebook that barely anyone owns to run a mainline Linux distro with all the features that aren’t available even in Google’s open source chromium kernels. I was extremely happy when I played a video and sound actually came out of the speakers. That one was a nightmare and took me weeks. I had to develop a whole process for getting these features to work. Compiling a kernel with a custom config, getting systemd to actually boot on that kernel, getting the sound configuration right, connecting pulseaudio with Google’s audio server, etc.
You might’ve seen this then (I’m quite proud of it)
That’s really damn cool. If I wasn’t already on arch I’d be yelling for this.
I’ve not heard of it, but it sounds great! Definitely will be watching it and trying it out!
It’s also on my gitea if you prefer that: https://gitea.arsenm.dev/Arsen6331/lure. The github repo is just a mirror, but it’s what I share with most people because they don’t want to make an account on my gitea instance.
Nice! Always good to host from multiple places.