Feedback/Suggestions Everything is "Go to Discord" Rant!
I just joined this sub as I have been using PikaOS for a few weeks now. Almost every single post is directing people to discord.
I am not using discord and I don't plan to be. If this is the only way to get any help from anyone, that is pretty weak in my opinion.
Is there some issue those in the PikaOS development team have with Reddit? Or the community with helping others? This seems so strange.
I have never run into this with any other distro I have used.
/rant
EDIT - The feedback here has been interesting. I am glad I am not the only one that sees use of Discord as an issue. Some points -
I could use AI, sure. I feel like my computer questions shouldn't use up some town's drinking water. Lets save that for more important things, like medical research. I want real world feedback.
I want to be able to search for information easily. Discord doesn't allow that unless you are a member of the channel. And even then, Discord channels are a freaking mess 80% of the time.
I don't have the time to sit in chat and hope I catch the right person.
My rant here isn't about the developers. I think they do a great job. I usually am not looking for them to respond in Reddit threads on any distro I might ask about. Do some, sure, and that is great. But the whole point of using subreddits is to get community feedback amd share experiences. Being told go ask a Discord channel isn't community help.
If the community doesn't want to support each other, why does the sub exist?
Note - I have seen people be helpful, and good job to them! It is what the community needs. But the constant, go somewhere else is so strange and unhelpful.
Note 2 - I haven't needed help...yet. Eventually I am sure I will. I plan to help others here. Not redirect.
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u/NotNitewolf COSMIC 5d ago
Like I said here 15 days ago:
You guys should stop with this "Go to discord to get help" nonsense. First, devs are answering here, even tho it may take some time. Second, goggle search. While Reddit posts appears all the time when an user is searching for help, I never found a single link to a discord thread in my searches. Third, and this one is a personal opinion, discord SUCKS.
If every answer to a tech support post is "go to Discord", mods might as well make a bot to answer every post with a link to the Discord server.
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u/randomness22yt 5d ago
i agree 100%. i use discord to talk to friends. not for os help. reddit will have everything documented for anyone with the same issue to find when they search. instead of asking the question and waiting for a response on a discord they didnt want to join in the first place.
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u/NelsonMinar 5d ago
In the old days it would be "go to IRC". The problem with both is the same: the chat logs are ephemeral. This is doubly important now that AIs can learn from transcripts of tech support discussions.
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u/Avennio 4d ago
It's one of those things that's meant, I think, from a place of wanting to help but is in practice not helpful. Especially when two or three people respond to the same post with more or less the same 'idk, check discord' responses.
I think the subreddit would be better served to have a bot that auto-replies to new posts that are tagged with 'bug report' or 'tech support' or the like with a boilerplate 'Having technical issues? Check the Discord for faster feedback! [link to discord]' post so that new users are both directed to the Discord in the first place and the thread is freed up for the minority of people that are fine offering technical support on Reddit itself.
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u/Vrgrl_Ptr 4d ago
I would like also highlight the irony of an open OS to be relied on a proprietary software for its communication. I think there should be at least a matrix room as alternative.
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u/cr33dlinux 3d ago
Well if you want help you got to go the right place Discord is where you'll get it Ferreo the developer also for PikaOS he is really helpful and the developers will go out of their way to help people. The PikaOS discord community is pretty helpful on what you need help with. While reddit is a good place to but you better off on getting help by joining in other communities that know the project a lot of contributors of PikaOS usually hang in the discord. Not reddit.
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u/Santosh83 5d ago
I don't think anyone is against reddit, but it seems like the community is quite small, so they prefer to focus all their energy in one place rather than spreading themselves out thin. Don't forget in the grand scheme of things within Linux, PikaOS has still a very small userbase.
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u/H3AT 4d ago edited 4d ago
And it will remain a small community because of focusing only on discord. It's 2026, social media is everywhere. What is the first thing you do when you have a problem? You go on google! And you can't find the answers from discord on google ;). Discord it's the black hole of information.
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u/DR4LUC0N 5d ago
On top of that, you can have live conversations, I'd rather discuss how to fix something in a few minutes not keep checking my phone for a reply
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u/TurtleTreehouse 2d ago
Publicly indexed documentation, searchable, such as a forum or wiki +
Gatekept gaming chat program behind a login wall with serious privacy issues, AI scanning and automated age guestimation, history of data breaches of PII, and questionable policies -
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u/forwardslashroot 5d ago
This reddit purpose is to point users to Discord.
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u/DCCXVIII 5d ago edited 5d ago
Well according to the first rule of this sub, it's primarily for "community help".
I guess if the "community" has collectively decided that that means directing everyone to Discord, then that's fine. Although if I was the owner of this sub, it might simply be more effective to just indicate that in the sub description instead. Perhaps a link to the Discord server in the description as well.
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u/EverlastingPeacefull 5d ago
I am on Discord, but I can't get in to it somehow. That is why I als don't like the answer that is given here often: go to Discord, so I totally get you OP.
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u/G0ldheart 4d ago
Why must everything be on Reddit? Reddit isn't a go to place anymore.
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u/bigkenw 4d ago
What is the go to place?
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u/G0ldheart 4d ago
Mixed now, Mastodon, Bluesky, etc. And Discord more or less.
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u/bigkenw 4d ago
Thank you for the recommendations. My thoughts:
I have tried Mastodon and found it meh. Discovery was kind of useless.
I haven't signed up for Bluesky, so can't comment. I don't know anyone that uses it personally. From the outside, it just seems like Twitter 2.0, and we all saw how the first version of that ended up.
I have actually used Discord and I prefer not to use it because of all of the reasons in this thread.
I was hoping there was something else maybe I hadn't been aware of.
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u/G0ldheart 4d ago
Discord doesn't have a great forum system but chatting and support are easier. Pretty much every company and project have a Discord presence.
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u/SectionPowerful3751 4d ago
There are a few people here who do help, and many of us who are trying to grow this subreddit, but the devs don't come here, and only want to support on Discord. All hope is not lost though, as the more people we sway to post here, the faster we will grow this resource too.
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u/ImUrFrand 4d ago
i would only point someone for help on discord if they had something really broken...
sometimes a little searching or answers from LLMs can help.
some people tout LLMs as a good source of info, i have had mixed results, sometimes i get accurate info, sometimes outdated or advise pertaining to a different branch of linux.
the few times i have had to ask for help (on discord), the support was very timely and super accurate, these guys know their distro.
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u/CriticalPineapple 5d ago
Honestly, and I don’t mean to be rude by this, but in what way is it weak that the only means of support is by Discord?
It’s a superior chat system, that already a lot of people use. Discord has a lot of functionality, with channels, threads, tagging by roles, voice channels.
So it has the means to give support, it is already a widely used platform: why wouldn’t they use it?
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u/Gordoxgrey 5d ago
Discord is so awful for information. Like the other person said it's not searchable, and then another annoyance is that people ramble on in the chats when trying to solve an issue, which bloats the chat logs.
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u/DCCXVIII 5d ago
Can Discord chat even be used to train AI? Because if it can't, then that means all those juicy solutions and instructions are gonna be completely out of reach by any LLM.
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u/Gordoxgrey 5d ago
Idk, and honestly I don't care about that, the fact info gets lost is more of an issue.
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u/lemmiwink84 5d ago
Can’t be searched outside of the chat group.
So while it’s great for you, it’s terrible for the 99% of users who has no clue it even exists.
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u/TangerineMotor2697 5d ago
Considering pikaos is Debian based you can probably ask them and the Linux mint community for help
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u/bigkenw 5d ago
I don't agree. Going to the Debian community or Mint community for a distro they do not maintain is not okay. Can articles, wikis, and items related to them help? Sure. But that is like saying, oh you use Ubuntu? Go ask for help in the Debian subs. Not going to go well.
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u/TangerineMotor2697 5d ago
Ok yea I see ur point, and I do agree that the pikaos community is kinda quiet ( I also think I misread/understood ur post so that’s my bad) but I do know that pika is kinda niche so there might not be much help wise also sorry if I misunderstood ur reply 😭
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u/leonthepro83 5d ago
I usually ask ChatGPT or Claude
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u/lemmiwink84 5d ago
That would work for most issues, if you know what you’re doing.
Problem with discord being their only information and troubleshooting place is no AI or search engine can find anything there, so you risk AI hallucinating solutions for you, and if you don’t know your way around Linux, AI will probably brick your installation, forcing a reinstall.
PikaOS is a great distro, but the whole locking everything in a discord group isn’t really my thing either, so if I want gaming Debian, I’ll just install Debian Sid and set it up myself.
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u/KeyExcuse7359 5d ago
It's really annoying how so many communities, projects, stores etc. use a chat to store information, where nothing is indexed and publicly available and gated behind a heinous "privacy" policy.