linuxmemes

GUIs are an awesome tool. Humans as a species have 5 senses, and instead of limiting computers to the narrow portion of sight needed for typing, they make full use of both our visual and aural senses.

That being said, they add another layer of abstraction away from the hardware on top of the already very abstract userspace utilities that abstract away the kernel that abstracts away the machine code that abstracts away the hardware.

All of which is to say that "Just Works" is shorthand for "I don't want to actually learn how this complex tool that I'm using works, I just want it to do everything I think it should be able to based on my lack of understanding, and do so in the way that makes sense to my ignorance. And I want it to do all that without learning why we do some steps (and then I'm going to complain about how little sense it all makes)."

That mentality is what allows predatory software companies to not only take advantage of their customers—by hiding shady practices outside of the GUI, and drawing attention to and manufacturing outrage about inconsequential "features" (like ads on the start menu)—but also exist in the first place. Pushing back against that "I shouldn't have to learn the tool to use it" mentality is one of the ways we keep scam artists and spyware dealers out of Linux spaces.

Most of the people I've introduced to Linux don't even use the shell. Beginner-friendly Linux distros are perfectly usable without ever touching a terminal, just as most people use Windows without ever touching PowerShell (or worse, the Registry Editor).

I have no idea what CLI is. I just use Mint and don't put much thought in.

I'm of the opinion that if you're a newbie to Linux and want to use a more GUI-centric distro, then be my guest, telling someone to jump straight into something like Arch when they're just ditching Windows for the first time is more likely to just turn them off Linux forever.

That said, as said newbie gets more comfortable with the terminal, Arch is there if they want more of a challenge, and even then with archinstall, the main difficult part is effectively nullified, although for more advanced, long-term users, fully manual installation is still there on the Arch ISO as an option, but I'd be more likely to point them to something like Debian or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed to start with as those are generally more beginner-friendly than Arch is.

It's open source, they can just make their own distro.

I'm on Mint, but I still use the terminal to update my flatpaks. I'm just freaky that way 😎

I think it's fine to have some less commonly used actions be only accessible through a terminal, even on more user-friendly distros. That is basically what Minecraft does, and yet no one's scared of that.

ITT: Nerds that want mass Linux adoption but don't want to deal with people who don't share their interests and opinions

Linux Mint vs Windows is already enough to learn for a day 1 linux user.

I learned the command line on Sun Solaris Unix in the 90s, after messing with DOS first. At work I have a terminal open all the time, though I'll use GUI versions of some things too.

I use mint btw.

literally just learn CLI, you're actively wasting time by not learning it. It's so hard to describe how utterly beneficial the CLI is to someone who hasn't used it.

"The new Windows Terminal is so slick! And PowerShell is soooo awesome! When will Linux get cool neat powerful stuff like this?"

"Uh... About three decades ago?"

(To be honest, PowerShell is neat. But it's also cross platform, so if I really want it on Linux I guess I can get it there too? I don't really need to, I'm in middle of rewriting some PowerShell stuff in Python)

Grew up with ms-dos. Spent half my career in telnet and ssh consoles.

When I just want to play Balatro at the end of a long day fuck any system that requires more than click click to get me in.

That's why I'm switching to Linux when windows 10 is no longer supported because fuck win 11 and the amount of regedits it's gonna take to get that working.

There's quite some hypocrisy in learning to use windows, its obscure registry and the shady softwares that will tune it while refusing to copy commands in a terminal.

Honestly, the biggest problem I've experienced is that once your colleagues see the CLI on your screen, you are no longer eligible to hold opinions on computers, systems or solutions.

The year of linux will never come because a lot of people wanna boot up their pc and have it work. Just fire up a program and have work, without looking up workarounds and clis and other stuff.

I made the jump just this month but i can totally understand if someone doesnt wanna do this.

I'm pretty comfortable on the command line, but I also won't hesitate to boot a live disk and # dd if=/dev/zero the main hard drive the moment my gui refuses to load.

A meme is a great way to avoid their fury; Lynx doesn't show images.

When are you REQUIRED to use cli? The app store works well, many apps have installers, and will be perfect for average users.

Advanced users should already be familiar with CLI and just need to learn a little more.