I’ve been doing the OverTheWire Bandit over the past couple of days and have become stuck on the earlier levels. I deem this very embarrassing as this is supposed to be an “easy” and “recommended for beginners” type of puzzle that requires hands on understanding of the Linux terminal. But I have been using Linux for 9 months now, I wouldn’t do the most complicated things (other than break my whole os) only the things required to make my overall user experience somewhat enjoyable. Now this makes me very sad to come to the conclusions that I may be below the average Linux beginner which I didn’t know was possible according to my knowledge. I am only asking of tips and tricks to these puzzles and maybe to positive reinforcement to make feel better about myself. Now I will not tolerate spoilers as in the official rules of OverTheWire clearly states, and I hope you will follow this rule for the better sake of my learning and understanding of the Linux terminal ( and for the sake of the game itself)

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[–] 18 points 13 hours ago (16 children)

it is a website for code, built for code tools.

Tell that to the people who distribute their applications exclusively through GH. I can't count how many times I've been told "just DL it from GH" and I have to reverse engineer the site to find the download link. I have it figured out now but it certainly could be a lot easier. And while I don't agree with the way it was presented, I empathize with the thought process.

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  • [–] 8 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

    I have not worked it out, too many times a search ended at GitHub; it’s like the great filter for me, I cannot for the life of me get past it.

    Similar/ related Linux instructions are often the same. Just do the gobbiligoo and write magicmumbojumbo in the wolooolooo. It is often just presumed that you know all terms, and that you automatically skip the first 5 steps which are soooo obvious.

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  • [–] 18 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

    I have not worked it out

    The secret is you have to scroll all the way to the bottom and click the tiny link that says "releases". Or sometimes click the ellipses (...) at the top of the page and find it there. From there you scroll to the bottom of the latest release and expand the section that says "assets". Then you typically need to understand package formats and choose the correct one for your device.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

    Oh. my. god. That just triggered me and I'm a dev. WHY THE FUCK ARE RELEASES AT THE BOTTOM ON MOBILE??!

    Like on the desktop it's right there in the right panel. Then I open the mobile interface for some APK and for the life of me I can't fucking find it. So I enable desktop mode and there it is. Jesus fucking Christ I hate it. It took me months to find it.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago (5 children)

    i mean it's a one time thing to learn, like with sourceforge, moddb, apt, etc etc

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  • [–] -1 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

    Sure, now try learning any of those things with no instructions.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago* (3 children)

    if they direct you to github for downloads, and don't point you directly to the releases page, and don't have anything about installation in the readme, then that's on them. personally, i'd click "releases" anyway because that sounds like a word associated with products.

    like, try downloading something from the steam workshop with no prior exposure to steam (eg, from the web browser and not logged in) then get back to me.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

    that's on them

    Sure. How does that help me?

    personally, i'd click "releases" anyway

    If you knew what you were looking for, sure. On every other website on the face of the planet, that button says "download".

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago

    Except you aren't "downloading" the .exe as this thread suggests.

    You're right, it is more complex, "difficult" and fiddly than downloading an exe - presumably because you are trying to do something more complex than your walled garden software allows.

    I don't do the repairs on my car myself, even though I probably could and most of them are probably simple and don't require specialist tools. Same for free software to do specialist functions.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago (5 children)

    You mean you have to read the "Install Instructions" section?

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  • [–] -1 points 6 hours ago (4 children)

    No, those usually don't exist. It's just assumed that you know how to do it already.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (3 children)

    So... You couldn't figure it out? I don't really get it. Are you saying it's too difficult?

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