I find myself really appreciating what LLMs can do when it comes to help with software and tech support. I am a pretty adept PC power user who is not a programmer and (until recently) has only had a modest amount of experience with GNU/Linux. However, I have started to get into self-hosting my own FOSS apps and servers (started with OpenWebUI, now Jellyfin/Sonarr via Docker compose etc). I’m also reading a book about the Linux command line and trying to decipher the wold of black magic that is networking etc myself.
I have found that LLMs can really help with comprehension and troubleshooting. That said, lately I am struggling to get good troubleshooting advice out of my LLMs. Specifically, for troubleshooting docker container setups and networking issues.
I had been using Qwen3 Coder 480b, but tried out Claude Sonnet 4 recently and both have let me down a bit. They don’t seem to think systematically when offering troubleshooting tips (Qwen at least). I was hoping Claude would be better since it is an order of magnitude more expensive on OpenRouter, but so far it has not seemed so.
So, what LLM do you use for this type of work? Any other tips for using models as a resource for troubleshooting? I have been providing access to full logs etc and being as detailed as possible and still struggling to get good advice lately. I’m not talking full vibe coding here but just trying to figure out why my docker container is throwing errors etc. Thanks!
Note: I did search and found a somewhat similar post from 6 months ago or so but it wasn’t quite as specific and because 6 months is half a lifetime in LLM development, I figured I’d post as well. Here’s the post in question in case anyone is curious to see that one.
Claude is fine but you REALLY have to hold its hand in order to get any sort of decent solution. if you don’t 9 times out of 10 it’ll just make something up based purely on a forum or repo post. you have to tell it to provide sources so as to prevent the usual BS it’ll spew out.
I found once you hold it’s hand and scold it a few times it will provide decent solutions but then by that point you’ve essentially turned it into a fancy search engine.
Appreciate you sharing your experience. With this being the case and it being an order of magnitude more $$$ than Qwen3 coder, I think I’ll mostly steer clear for now. Not sure why this model seems to have such mindshare and dominance with programmers these days honestly. Other than many in the west seem somewhat biased against Chinese models.
Mainly because of Claude Code.
CC is better than the web based Claude especially when it comes to actual coding since it’s embedded with whatever project you’re working on.
Claude really excels when it’s right in the thick of it with you. Thus, again, you REALLY have to hold it’s hand. I personally don’t think it’s as great as others make it out to be.