Linux

I know. And you say it well; I, like many long-time Linux users, are so used to the CLI for everything that looking at the desktop today it seems everything is now doable in a GUI.

I do see this; my comment was more that more effort is needed to normalize GUI interfaces for the remaining cases. There's a GUI package manager (bauk?) that works on multiple distributions; I have my wife on Arch, and I always use that program when I have to install something, just to see if I can avoid opening a shell. It works pretty well for the most part... but EndeavorOS doesn't install it by default, and I had to drop into a terminal to install it the first time. It's stuff like that which still needs polishing.

Other areas have made great progress. I almost always use system-config-printer to do printer stuff because the Cups CLI tools are terrible and I use them so rarely I spend more time relearning them; it's just easier to use the GUI, and it works well.

I think the next tool we'll see (and need) is a GUI that will fetch install packages from source. For most Go and Rust end-user GUI programs, this could absolutely be done since both have a canonical methodology for installing or building software: go install and cargo. cargo build puts artifacts in a predictable location, and go install installs them in a determinable one. The same is true for a lot of languages, e.g. pipx. There's a supply-chain security concern, but if well-written this could be reduced by the tool. A really nice tool would be able to pull containers as well, like a sort of Flatpack-light.

That said: my octogenarian father bought a used laptop about 6 months ago and called me, cross-country, to help him install Linux on it (it had some version of Windows on it). I helped him create a Mint flash drive on his old computer and walked through the GUI install with him over the phone, and he's only called me once for help with it since, and that was to get the printer working; we solved it with GUI tools. He doesn't install software; he's running KDE and everything he's wanted to do there's been a KDE program for, already installed. But I don't imagine he's the common case.

I'm drifting. In any case: you're right, there are still a lot of gaps, but I think many of those actually do have GUI solutions, they're simply not used by distributions. It'd be interesting to see a distribution that tries to eliminate all of these cases by choosing software - like bauk - and installing it by default.

Step 1 ‐ install BalenaEtcher.

FWIW, perhaps you should reconsider if you should even use balenaEtcher.

I never figured out step 1. It’s not in the software store.

Unfortunately, this does happen at times. Therefore, it's a good idea to be aware of alternatives. One such example would be Fedora Media Writer that you may install as a flatpak. Though, the most popular is probably Ventoy.

Eventually I found an APPimg file, and it installed Balena Etcher. But it wouldn’t launch after being installed.

Unfortunately, AppImages aren't as reliable as one might expect. Assuming that your distro supports it OOTB, you're still often required to explicitly allow it to be run as an executable. Which is a good thing for the sake of secure defaults*. Granting it is simply done by:

1. Right-clicking the AppImage you wish to execute
2. Go into "Properties"
3. Turn the switch ON that's found to the right of "Executable as Program"

You can put multiple ISOs on it, and choose at boot.

FWIW, the aforementioned Ventoy does just that.

Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.

Some of the more extreme people call it unnecessary bloat. I think it's a great solution and really important for the mainstream adoption of Linux. And yeah snaps are shit and fully deserving of that reputation. I suspect some of the flatpak hate is also from a confusion with snap.