Comment on We need to go back! Back to the terminal!
original_reader@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Hard disagree.
GUIs made computers/operating systems accessible. In fact, I would argue that we need even less command line in Linux distributions for the mist common tasks and even those beyond that. The hardcore Linux fan won’t agree, I guess, but IMO that’s one of the ongoing needs in Linux accessibility and wider acceptance.
Good example is YasT in OpenSuse. A GUI for much of the stuff other distributions require knowledge of terminal commands, though it really is for Sys. Admins.
Mint and its big daddy Ubuntu have done well for the average user. I hope that this trend will continue and other companies will support Linux better than they are now.
Every few years I buy a new computer and then install a fresh copy of whatever UI friendly distro that the community is gushing over. Each time has seen significant improvements but each time I’m spending my time in the terminal.
I’m not even a normie. I run Synology with docker containers. I operate my own website. I just don’t wanna be in the terminal just to play my PC games.
I think the problem is that it’s just easier to explain what to do for someone having a problem by telling them to paste a line of text into the terminal. Having to walk a user through gui navigation is a pain.
That means, though, that anyone getting help to get gud at Linux is going to mostly be leaning terminal commands.
Quite the opposite. Walking people through terminal commands is a pain. Cryptic commands that often obscure their true meaning and functionality, where every typo leads to failure.
On the other hand, asking someone to open “Software” and just click on the “Install” button of whatever they searched for is infinitely better than explaining how to update the package index, add a repo and so forth.
And that’s just installing software.
New kernel? The average user shouldn’t know about that. Just install it with an OS upgrade. File editing? Stop starting to explanations with “sudo nano…”, start with “open your favourite text editor”. Or better: " click on settings and activate option xyz." And so forth.
I use the terminal myself. Sometimeas because I want to. Often because I have to. I wish I had the option more often.
But the opposite is true when you’re by yourself. If you’re staring at the terminal, literally infinite commands are possible. If you’ve got a GUI, the designers had to spend a little time thinking about what all the operations in the program were, and how to organize and access them. You, the user, then get to navigate this mini-help-guide that is the GUI in order to figure out what you need to do. Yes, it’s more work for the programmer, but that’s the entire point of programming. Do a little more work up front in order to save yourself and others a lot of work down the road.
This guy gets it.
I just spent 5 days with full ADHD hyper focused trying to install Standard Notes on my Synology. Even with the help of forums and ChatGPT I can’t get it to work.
I think the last time I tried a Linux distro, I couldn’t get my gaming steering wheel to work properly and spent 3 days also failing.
Drag agrees with you. Drag just had a funny conversation recently about a particular Linux tool that had a desktop version and a CLI version, and drag was asked which drag wanted. Drag would personally prefer to use it on the CLI, though drag is glad the GUI exists. And then this meme popped into drag’s head.
Such a bizarrely stupid social experiment.
No, GUI is actually great and opened up computers to billions more people.
I think anyone reading this can gather that I’m referring to this “drag” nonsense. Not for one second has anyone believed you go around IRL requiring people to call you “drag”. It’s blatantly obvious that you’re just trolling because you think you can get away with it.
Are you referring to yourself in the third person?
No. Drag uses person-independent pronouns.
You actually do frequently post in the third person. For a recent example, you said
Drag thinks drag gets it, thanks!
That is structured as a third person sentence. A first person version would be, “Drag think drag get it, thanks!” Basically, you don’t always conjugate for first person. Since your name/nickname and pronoun only differ by capitalization, though, neither form quite looks right in English.
Bacano@lemmy.world 1 week ago
We need to get normies on Linux. Full stop.
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
We did get normies on Linux. 70% of people use an Android phone. That’s Linux.
Linux can be dead easy to use, and normies can get used to it. It’s just a matter of the technology and the brand, both of which Valve seems to be working on lately. Linux is happening.
PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Android uses the linux kernel. It has little to do with what we actually mean when we say linux IMHO
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
then you should say systemd/linux /s
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
It’s a lot easier to get normies to use Linux if you tell them it’s what their phone runs on
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
And how much command line does the average user use while operating their android phone?
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 week ago
None? As it should be??
modus@lemmy.world 1 week ago
How do I access the CLI on my phone?
Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/
herrvogel@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Android got people on Linux the same way routers got people on BSD.
And besides the mobile environment should definitely NOT be used as an example for the desktop space. It’s a disgusting mess of strict vendor controls and proprietary crap trying to put heavy limits on what the user can or cannot do with their hardware. Absolutely don’t want that for my PC. I already have a sneaking suspicion that that’s where we’re headed with ARM on desktop, which is a scary thought.