Installing stuff needs to not be a hostile moonscape of cobbled instructions and deciphering terminal matrix-speak.
Double click to install for everything, good (as opposed to existent) GUIs for everything, one-click updates all in one place. Leave the obscure terminal stuff in forever, so the big dick terminal folk can clack away and do everything they want that way. No reason to remove any of it; it’s an awesome option to have.
It’s too difficult to recommend wholeheartedly on its own merits because of random 10,000% drops in usability. It’s not super far from living up to its ideals more fully, though. Well…it feels that way to me, but maybe those problems don’t make the amount of work to fix them obvious.
I’ll never leave it because it’s clearly the way to go, but with a little attitude solving, Linux could be the god damn best on every front, as opposed to “best overall mostly because the others are spying shitty money addicts trying to ruin your computer on purpose”.
When was the last time you used a Linux distro? 2005? Some desktops have had one-click updates since about that year, there are pretty good GUIs (that you don’t like them because they are in a terminal is a terminalWindowsism) and the “terminal matrix speak” is just knowing what you are talking about. You do know at least something about the parts of the car you drive, do you not?
The one big thing I grant is the double-click idioms, because at least in my experience it’s where lots of systems tend to clash against each other. A given app registers double click actions for certain files, then the browser does the same for those files, then Wine / Flatpak steals that association too… in the end you almost never know who is going to open your files in modern Linux unless you context-click specifically. It’s the one aspect on the list I’d say Linux has regressed since 2015.
Yeah I recently installed Signal on my kubuntu machine and the Signal website only showed how to install it via CLI no mentioning of the Discover or Snap store. My parents, who only started using the computer for the first time after their 60’s, are definitely not able to install it if they forget that the stores exist and a website tells them to use the CLI as the only option.
Like the front ends exist application makers just need to point people to it if they want Linux adoption to improve.
I understand that’s how things are, but man, what a sorry state of affairs. CLIs used to be the ONLY way to use computers, and common people wrote programs all the time! It was part of normal school curriculum for fucks sake. My mom was required to learn BASIC in high school. Nothing even close to that now. Schools MAYBE have some intro programming elective, if they’re lucky.
We’ve managed to deskill multiple generations of computer users, and it gets worse every single year. More and more people only understand to scroll and press big buttons, with cognition of any sort being completely absent. Just monkeys in a cage created by corporations. It’s heartbreaking, really.
What don’t you like about GUI package manager frontends? The Pop!_OS spin of GNOME software worked pretty good for me and so does the cosmic-epoch store they’re working on. (Plus they both look good) Even downloading random .deb from the internet is only a double click away from being installed with Popsicle. Can’t comment on non Debian based ones though
I don’t know man… Once you get used to firing up a terminal and typing “flatpak install whatever” and it just installing in a few seconds, it’s hard to go back.
Installing stuff needs to not be a hostile moonscape of cobbled instructions and deciphering terminal matrix-speak.
Double click to install for everything, good (as opposed to existent) GUIs for everything, one-click updates all in one place. Leave the obscure terminal stuff in forever, so the big dick terminal folk can clack away and do everything they want that way. No reason to remove any of it; it’s an awesome option to have.
It’s too difficult to recommend wholeheartedly on its own merits because of random 10,000% drops in usability. It’s not super far from living up to its ideals more fully, though. Well…it feels that way to me, but maybe those problems don’t make the amount of work to fix them obvious.
I’ll never leave it because it’s clearly the way to go, but with a little attitude solving, Linux could be the god damn best on every front, as opposed to “best overall mostly because the others are spying shitty money addicts trying to ruin your computer on purpose”.
pot name kettle.
When was the last time you used a Linux distro? 2005? Some desktops have had one-click updates since about that year, there are pretty good GUIs (that you don’t like them because they are in a terminal is a terminalWindowsism) and the “terminal matrix speak” is just knowing what you are talking about. You do know at least something about the parts of the car you drive, do you not?
The one big thing I grant is the double-click idioms, because at least in my experience it’s where lots of systems tend to clash against each other. A given app registers double click actions for certain files, then the browser does the same for those files, then Wine / Flatpak steals that association too… in the end you almost never know who is going to open your files in modern Linux unless you context-click specifically. It’s the one aspect on the list I’d say Linux has regressed since 2015.
Yeah I recently installed Signal on my kubuntu machine and the Signal website only showed how to install it via CLI no mentioning of the Discover or Snap store. My parents, who only started using the computer for the first time after their 60’s, are definitely not able to install it if they forget that the stores exist and a website tells them to use the CLI as the only option.
Like the front ends exist application makers just need to point people to it if they want Linux adoption to improve.
I understand that’s how things are, but man, what a sorry state of affairs. CLIs used to be the ONLY way to use computers, and common people wrote programs all the time! It was part of normal school curriculum for fucks sake. My mom was required to learn BASIC in high school. Nothing even close to that now. Schools MAYBE have some intro programming elective, if they’re lucky.
We’ve managed to deskill multiple generations of computer users, and it gets worse every single year. More and more people only understand to scroll and press big buttons, with cognition of any sort being completely absent. Just monkeys in a cage created by corporations. It’s heartbreaking, really.
I bet that when CLIs were the only way to use computers, the majority of people probably didn’t use a computer at all.
The best part of Linux is that it comes from servers/embedded
You don’t need any specific software or GUI. It is modular and performant.
What don’t you like about GUI package manager frontends? The Pop!_OS spin of GNOME software worked pretty good for me and so does the cosmic-epoch store they’re working on. (Plus they both look good) Even downloading random .deb from the internet is only a double click away from being installed with Popsicle. Can’t comment on non Debian based ones though
I don’t know man… Once you get used to firing up a terminal and typing “flatpak install whatever” and it just installing in a few seconds, it’s hard to go back.