Hello Linux community.
I’d like to take a moment to explain what I hope will be a simple concept (so really it’s more of a reminder) that everyone should say least know and understand.
Not everyone (myself included) learns best by RTFM. Some of us need a guiding hand or to watch a video instead. It’s not that we’re lazy or don’t like reading, it’s just that it doesn’t work efficiently enough.
I know It’ll be a controversial take on here; but while I don’t like the use of AI for most things, I’ve found LLMs to be immensely valuable when it comes to learning how to Linux, and as an extension, how to self host.
I understand the limitations, but it’s so much more straightforward to tell an LLM what I’m trying to achieve then follow those instructions, than it is to try and poke about from site to site trying to piece together the information. Particularly if you don’t know what it is you need to search for in the first place.
Obviously you have to exercise some caution, but it makes so much more sense to me to confirm instructions provided by an LLM than it is to try and figure out where to even start. And let’s be honest, not all forum users are as forgiving to complete noobs.
The problem with using an LLM for information is that you can ask chatgpt:
"please provide me with 3 different interpretations of the main function of the Linux command ‘ls’
and you’ll get what you ask for. An llm is an inappropriate tool to lookup accurate information.