LinuxQuestions.org - Youtube problem solutions are useless

- Linux - General (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/)

- - Youtube problem solutions are useless - for me, how about you ? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/youtube-problem-solutions-are-useless-for-me-how-about-you-4175695025/)

Youtube problem solutions are useless - for me, how about you ?

Some of the videos are so quick, that I have problem grasping anything useful.
So when doing Google searches I skip reading anything that is presented in Youtube.
Sometimes I add '-youtube' into the search and get nothing out of the results.:(

I skip videos (YouTube or otherwise) for the opposite reason - it takes too long to get the information out of them, and they rarely explore subjects to a useful level.

Skimming text and in-page searching is far faster and easier.

Getting any useful information out of search engines at all frequently seems to be getting harder.

I also object to people asking for help saying "I followed this video" - as per above, I'm not going to sit through thirty minutes to maybe find what was being referred to.

Too old, too crotchety maybe ... :shrug:

I agree that videos are not the best way to learn about Linux.

I tend to rely on the man pages. Learning how to read the documentation is an important skill in understanding any system

Back in the day Burroughs/Unisys docs used what they called a “railroad diagram” Once understood, I found it to be a very effective way to describe a command structure. (This was before the ‘net was available…we had shelves full of binders)

I'm sick and tired of newbies coming here and posting that they did this or that to their system following one or more youtube videos and now it's completely FUBAR. And it really isn't their fault. It's just that, at their knowledge level, they have no way of determining whether any of these smart guys actually know what they are talking about.

I consider youtube a menace.

I once was known to have stated that "Video is not the best way to learn anything, and is a HORRIBLE format for reference". I stand by that in general, but make one exception: video may be the best way to learn how to make video.

A combination of very SHORT video on a mostly text based reference CAN be even better than a totally text based document, or text with limited illustrations, if it is done well.

We have MANY resources for text documents both online and offline, we have MANY resources for video, we need a resource for mixed-mode documentation.

i prefer text for technical information. Video is great for mechanical stuff such as disassembling something tricky. Watching someone else do it is almost as good as having a junker spare to practice on.

Depends on the video. Which means you need to know something about the subject to start with. For a rolling release version of linux, a 6 month old video is worthless, or maybe worse, it may be wrong. But for awk, sed, python, bash, grep... there are a lot of good videos there.

You need to search youtube. But not a blind search, whatever youtube wants to give you. A specific search, in a date range, that you want. And keep a cache of your searches, with a log. You won't need javascript on in your web browser. Which of course makes it faster and lighter. Make google work for you. If the video is 1:30 seconds, then there probably isn't much there. Also take note of some of the users. When you find a good poster, Search for videos that 'they' have posted.

Quote:

Some of the videos are so quick, that I have problem grasping anything useful.

Then download it to file so that you can watch it over several times. Or get the video url, start playing it with mplayer, and see if it is what you want. You can tell in the first 30 seconds. You won't waste a bunch of bandwidth that way.

Quote:

So when doing Google searches I skip reading anything that is presented in Youtube.

I've made 30 or 40 bash/python scripts to make youtube work better for me.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/bash



#Use google to search youtube. Dump results as text and log.



#User agent to use

agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:86.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/86.0"



#Cache dir

cd $HOME/some/where



#Google search url

url="https://www.google.com/search?q=site:youtube.com"



while :; do

    #Get inputs

    read -p "Enter/Paste utube search words (big+red+truck): " search_words

    read -p "Enter dates (after:2020-05-01 before:2020-07-30): " date_range



    #Make url for search

    goog_url=""$url"+"$search_words"+"$date_range""



    #Make cache file name

    num=1

    until [ ! -e youtube_search$num.html ]; do

        num=$(($num + 1))

    done

    cache_file_name="youtube_search"$num".html"



    #Search for utube vids with google, cache page.

    wget -k -U "$agent" "$goog_url" -O "$cache_file_name"

    #curl -A "$agent" "$goog_url" -o "$cache_file_name"

    

    #Log search terms, with separator between

    str=$(printf "%70s")

    echo "${str// /─}" >> search.log

    echo -e "Url: "$goog_url" \nCachefile: "$cache_file_name"\n" >> search.log



    #Your web browser here.

    palemoon "$cache_file_name" | tee -a search.log &

done

Get a book! Or, learn how to read man/info pages. :)

Youtube.com is useless - for me, how about you ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by leclerc78 (Post 6250193)

This is just a rant. FWIW, I agree that Linux problems are rarely solved with videos, often made worse.

But I first thought you were asking for help with an actual problem: you can make video go slower with a media player like mpv. The best thing: it also plays youtube videos; make sure the newest version of youtube-dl is in your PATH, then just ask mpv to play a youtube link.
It gets better: you can also search youtube (and directly play the links) without ever opening the web page (or prop. API).
teckk above has a script somewhere, I have one in my repos, but the best way is to use ytfzf!

@teckk @ondoho
10 bad posts waste me 1hr at most, 10 bad videos ... ?
Some youtube posters clearly aim to raise their 'view rating', that's all.

Being a dude that picks up cheap motorcycles because of watched youtube videos on how to add a hammer kit to a sportster.
PLUS CHEAP computers also from users that are clueless.

I find it as no surprise that this thread was started.

Since lack of knowledge and expertise kinda don't help you when viewing a video.
I also know how to pause a video in youtube when things move too fast.
Like, what does he mean when he said sub hda1 with sda1 because of kernel change.

Rebuilding broken linux or a motorcycle takes a few years of previous experience.
So either buy a new motorcycle. Or pay some one like me to fix it.
Youtube can only take you so far.

Back when I began using Gnu/Linux. Reinstalls were only 30 minutes, tops.
Guess what I would do instead of fixing the problem?

Now with years of experience. Things got easier.

Edit. I posted the youtube link to explain a little better what I am saying. That is not my site. So not trying to raise view count up.

I've had the misfortune of watching Linux- or Windows-related YouTube videos, and my experience pretty much mirrors that of several of the posters earlier in this thread. The videos are often amateurish, have awful audio quality, and are obviously padded to meet the magical 10-minute length required by the YouTube algoritm.

There are a few notable exceptions. For instance, many of the videos with lectures and presentations from various hacker and programming conferences are truly excellent.

However, I've found that many (perhaps even most) of the tutorial videos on YouTube that deal with topics other than programming and computers are excellent. For instance, I've successfully rebuilt car engines, fixed drywalls, repaired Switching-Mode Power Supplies, and done basic plumbing thanks to videos from extremely helpful YouTubers.

I absolutely love YouTube instruction videos. Right now, I'm picking up some very useful welding tips from a random Russian.

"Anyone can create and publish a video." This does not mean that any of them are good at it! "Creating an effective instructional video" is actually quite difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leclerc78 (Post 6250193)

It depends. As they say: YMMV. My boss has had me watching a series covering a technology under consideration for getting used in-house and I'm finding it useful. I'll likely buy the presenter's accompanying (low priced) ebook as a companion and future reference (updates are supp0sed to be free, unlike an O'Rielly book). On the other hand, there are some videos where the video quality is so poor that I can't read what's being entering at the command line or the presenter points and clicks around on the screen so quickly that I've spent more time rewinding/rewatching than getting anything useful out of the video.