My mom is in her 70s, never has been techy, and has been using Linux as her daily driver for a solid eight years now. I have to do less troubleshooting for her now that she's on Linux than I ever did when she used Windows. "You have to use the command line" is an extremely outdated criticism of desktop Linux.
Not true at all. In my experience just about everything I need to do must be installed via cli on Ubuntu, following sometimes a page long guide of shit to do.
What kind of things do you install? Typically the "page long guide"s are showing every basic step to hold the users hand. If you're installing something in ubuntu, you update your repos, then install the package.
Every time I install something in windows, the endless unique install wizards, weird spyware packaging, restart requirements, etc make me want to rage quit. Not to mention the sketchy sites most Windows freeware comes from, or the windows store that will continually re-install candy crush and minecraft.
With Linux, even the CLI you learn a handful of basic concepts and live your life. To me complaining about typing "apt get install" is akin to complaining you need to learn to read to know when the bus is arriving.
I'll admit there are three extra steps with say, installing chrome. But if you say out loud what you're doing, ie "I need to add the repository so my computer knows where to get chrome" "Now that it knows where chrome is, I'll run apt get update to refresh the packages" "Now that it knows where it is, and its refreshed, let me install it with apt get install chrome".
or if you download a deb package, the ubuntu apt store will automatically open it with a double click then you click "install".
No offense to you, but there seems to be an attitude that when trying something new, you should not be expected to learn the slightest thing about it. Sure your mom or grandpa might not be able to install it, but if you're at the point where you've acknowledged the page long guide, you're certainly smart enough to try something and give it an honest try.
Call me crazy but I'd rather have to learn how to use APT then have to learn each and every creative technique they come up with the make me install the ask toolbar or norton AV or sign me up for a newsletter. Linux has never had that problem.
Anytime I need to install something in windows, it just feels, uncivilized? Like every step of the way is disrespectful to the user. Windows is political, it has business priorities that effect how it's used. Linux feels like a rock, like yeah you can get mad at it when you drop it on your foot but the rock isn't interacting back the same way that windows is constantly changing and questioning your judgement.
I've been using various distros for the past 6 months trying to find the right fit for my work. I do remote desktop support of many windows based enterprises.
I use Linux desktop every single day for 8 hours. I also play games of all sorts.
KDE neon was what I had when I started out and it was great. Zero problems. There's no reason you'd ever need CLI in plasma desktop that I can see.
Fedora/plasma is a no go. Too complex with selinux and you really do need to know what you're doing. Still quite usable for 90% of day to day
For the past month I've been on mint 21 and have had zero issues and zero CLI time.
Been enjoying baldurs gate 3 out of the box, using outlook, teams, various browsers and whatnot. Not going to give a comprehensive list here, but everything works perfectly and almost everything has been installed straight from the software manager.
I've installed ZorinOS on a non tech savvy friends computer so she could get more life out of her old laptop and she was fine without using any terminal
It wasn't always the case. Windows 3x gui had to be started from a dos prompt. But this anti cli sentiment swings both ways for all OS's.
The bigger issue I have though is a general unwillingness to learn how to do things beyond click icons for apps. Devices now are engineered to be as simple as possible. Which ya, for most people is fine. But these devices in turn are generally way more challenging to fix. So it encourages just buying a new one instead. Creating more ewaste for something that should be easier to fix, all because of software, or physical assembly.
I think an issue is that people tend to think of Linux as meaning "all distributions." So if something is compatible with X distro version yy.zz, the general idea is "it's compatible with Linux." This, in my experience, is one of the things that leads to mandatory command-line usage --- it definitely is possible to get it to work under a different flavor of Linux, but it's not necessarily easy if you're uncomfortable with a command line.
Another is drivers --- if it's mainlined, it will Just Work, but if it's not...well, it may work, but you might have to jump through hoops and get busy with the command line.
In short: if you view your distro the same way you view a particular Windows release, then I really don't think you need the command line for desktop Linux. But you need to accept that some software isn't "compatible," in the above, user-friendly sense of the word.
That command line sure comes in handy when you're trying to help someone do something and you can just send them a one-liner to paste into the terminal rather than have to show a series of screenshots "click this > then this > this this and this> This checkbox >this menu"
Agreed. Also from a Tech support POV, there is no "standard" OS and troubleshooting the vast different environments would be a pain. With Windows, you have a standard layout, with couple different versions - Home / Pro / Enterprise. With linux, you have different syntax, differnt DE's, etc. Still use Linux at home / work but i am interested in it. Got to have that motivation to do so.
Same thing with moving to Lemmy, gotta have that motivation to make the change.
Yall miss the point. Im guessing willfully. No average desktop user wants to be forced to use command line to do anything.
Linux will never see mainstream desktop usage.
My mom is in her 70s, never has been techy, and has been using Linux as her daily driver for a solid eight years now. I have to do less troubleshooting for her now that she's on Linux than I ever did when she used Windows. "You have to use the command line" is an extremely outdated criticism of desktop Linux.
Yup. I got relatives started on Mint dual booted with Windows. They don't use Windows as Linux just works.
deleted by creator
Not true at all. In my experience just about everything I need to do must be installed via cli on Ubuntu, following sometimes a page long guide of shit to do.
What kind of things do you install? Typically the "page long guide"s are showing every basic step to hold the users hand. If you're installing something in ubuntu, you update your repos, then install the package.
Every time I install something in windows, the endless unique install wizards, weird spyware packaging, restart requirements, etc make me want to rage quit. Not to mention the sketchy sites most Windows freeware comes from, or the windows store that will continually re-install candy crush and minecraft.
With Linux, even the CLI you learn a handful of basic concepts and live your life. To me complaining about typing "apt get install" is akin to complaining you need to learn to read to know when the bus is arriving.
I'll admit there are three extra steps with say, installing chrome. But if you say out loud what you're doing, ie "I need to add the repository so my computer knows where to get chrome" "Now that it knows where chrome is, I'll run apt get update to refresh the packages" "Now that it knows where it is, and its refreshed, let me install it with apt get install chrome".
or if you download a deb package, the ubuntu apt store will automatically open it with a double click then you click "install".
No offense to you, but there seems to be an attitude that when trying something new, you should not be expected to learn the slightest thing about it. Sure your mom or grandpa might not be able to install it, but if you're at the point where you've acknowledged the page long guide, you're certainly smart enough to try something and give it an honest try.
Call me crazy but I'd rather have to learn how to use APT then have to learn each and every creative technique they come up with the make me install the ask toolbar or norton AV or sign me up for a newsletter. Linux has never had that problem.
Anytime I need to install something in windows, it just feels, uncivilized? Like every step of the way is disrespectful to the user. Windows is political, it has business priorities that effect how it's used. Linux feels like a rock, like yeah you can get mad at it when you drop it on your foot but the rock isn't interacting back the same way that windows is constantly changing and questioning your judgement.
I've been using various distros for the past 6 months trying to find the right fit for my work. I do remote desktop support of many windows based enterprises.
I use Linux desktop every single day for 8 hours. I also play games of all sorts.
KDE neon was what I had when I started out and it was great. Zero problems. There's no reason you'd ever need CLI in plasma desktop that I can see. Fedora/plasma is a no go. Too complex with selinux and you really do need to know what you're doing. Still quite usable for 90% of day to day
For the past month I've been on mint 21 and have had zero issues and zero CLI time. Been enjoying baldurs gate 3 out of the box, using outlook, teams, various browsers and whatnot. Not going to give a comprehensive list here, but everything works perfectly and almost everything has been installed straight from the software manager.
I've installed ZorinOS on a non tech savvy friends computer so she could get more life out of her old laptop and she was fine without using any terminal
noob
It wasn't always the case. Windows 3x gui had to be started from a dos prompt. But this anti cli sentiment swings both ways for all OS's.
The bigger issue I have though is a general unwillingness to learn how to do things beyond click icons for apps. Devices now are engineered to be as simple as possible. Which ya, for most people is fine. But these devices in turn are generally way more challenging to fix. So it encourages just buying a new one instead. Creating more ewaste for something that should be easier to fix, all because of software, or physical assembly.
I'd say "a general unwillingness to learn how to do things", period.
deleted by creator
that killer app is soon going to be "doesn't have advertising in every menu"
I think an issue is that people tend to think of Linux as meaning "all distributions." So if something is compatible with X distro version yy.zz, the general idea is "it's compatible with Linux." This, in my experience, is one of the things that leads to mandatory command-line usage --- it definitely is possible to get it to work under a different flavor of Linux, but it's not necessarily easy if you're uncomfortable with a command line.
Another is drivers --- if it's mainlined, it will Just Work, but if it's not...well, it may work, but you might have to jump through hoops and get busy with the command line.
In short: if you view your distro the same way you view a particular Windows release, then I really don't think you need the command line for desktop Linux. But you need to accept that some software isn't "compatible," in the above, user-friendly sense of the word.
That command line sure comes in handy when you're trying to help someone do something and you can just send them a one-liner to paste into the terminal rather than have to show a series of screenshots "click this > then this > this this and this> This checkbox >this menu"
Agreed. Also from a Tech support POV, there is no "standard" OS and troubleshooting the vast different environments would be a pain. With Windows, you have a standard layout, with couple different versions - Home / Pro / Enterprise. With linux, you have different syntax, differnt DE's, etc. Still use Linux at home / work but i am interested in it. Got to have that motivation to do so.
Same thing with moving to Lemmy, gotta have that motivation to make the change.