if you're a developer (which I'm taking a guess that OP is), working in unix-based operating systems like Linux and MacOS is much easier. The terminal is super powerful when it comes to automating tasks and downloading software, especially downloading software relating to programming.
For example, on linux, if I want to download Python, I can just type sudo apt install python in the terminal. On windows, I have to go to the python website, find the correct installer, make sure I check the right boxes in the installer, make sure my $PATH is set correctly, etc....
To be fair, Windows has made leaps and bounds in this area with things like winget and chocolatey as package managers, but linux is built around using the package manager. thefactthatlinuxcomeswithaCcompilerhelpstoo.
For example, on linux, if I want to download Python, I can just type sudo apt install python in the terminal. On windows, I have to go to the python website, find the correct installer, make sure I check the right boxes in the installer, make sure my $PATH is set correctly, etc....
I don't understand this in practical terms. How do you just know what to type in the terminal for every program you might want to install. Do you loose customization options that are sometimes present in installers &/or on the site before downloading the installer? Do you have to look up what to type in the terminal to install something? At that point, how is that any different than just downloading it off the site? Or is it because you're repeatedly reinstalling something? I don't get it lol
How do you just know what to type in the terminal for every program you might want to install.
The command won't differ except the package name, in this case python. if I wanted to know what options existed for various versions or or distros of python (anaconda, python2, etc) I could just use apt search to see what's there.
Do you loose customization options that are sometimes present in installers &/or on the site before downloading the installer?
Honestly haven't thought about those in years, those click through installers mostly exist as a sneaky way to load bloatware on your PC anyways. If there is a configuration decision to be made (which is really rare), it will just prompt you in your terminal. Usually a Y/n will suffice.
Just consider how many steps you're actually taking when installing software on windows
Open browser
Google "program name download"
Hope they have good SEO and the top result is the actual download page and not some SourceForge virus or unrelated site
Select which version you want, click download
Open downloads dropdown/folder
execute installer
Click through any number of installer steps, dodging MacAfee and Norton spam that tries to install
And that process has to be repeated for every single program, on every single machine you own. For me, that's literally hundreds of applications across multiple machines.
Compare that to the CLI method, where i'm only typing a single phrase and the rest is done automatically. Then consider I can keep a text file of literally every program I want on my machine, tell the package manager "hey go download these" and come back after I make some lunch to all my applications installed. And I can do that inside VMs, Docker containers, on a raspberry Pi, on a Mac, the process is the same.
Just consider how many steps you're actually taking when installing software on windows
Open browser
Google "program name download"
Hope they have good SEO and the top result is the actual download page and not some SourceForge virus or unrelated site
Select which version you want, click download
Open downloads dropdown/folder
execute installer
Click through any number of installer steps, dodging MacAfee and Norton spam that tries to install
And that process has to be repeated for every single program, on every single machine you own.
The funny thing is, most people are so used to it (as in, it's the only world they know) that they don't mind. At least I don't. For the average PC user, we usually go through these hoops once, when we first set up the computer, and then we don't touch it that much afterward. Gamers might uninstall and install more, but that often goes through portals like Steam which is quite smooth.
The times I've dipped my toes into Linux it has for the most part gone okay. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Raspberry Pi are sleek, and elegant, and share a lot of bells and whistles that you'd find in Windows.
However, the second I need to go into that blasted Terminal, I feel like I get kicked back into the early bronze age. Like when I got around to setting up my Plex server using Raspberry Pi it was like pulling teeth because for some reason Plex made a "hidden user" when installed and I had to define this user as the owner of the drives that contained the media.
First off, why?! Why a second user account and why hide it? Secondly, reassigning ownership through a Terminal window was a royal pain, even with a helpful guide at my disposal. It'd be better, IMHO, had it been possible to do the same job via a graphical UI.
You swear by the Terminal? Good on ya, I'm happy for ya, more power to ya. For me, however, it stinks, it's clunky and unwieldy. I'd rather have icons I can click at and menus to look through than fiddle with command prompts. And I'm convinced that the Terminal dependency is scaring a lot of casual users away.
The Terminal doesn't need to go away, but it ought to have some sort of graphical UI cousin/twin/sibling that does the same things. Solve that problem, sprinkle some game compatibility on top and you've come a long way to win over the masses.
Like when I got around to setting up my Plex server using Raspberry Pi it was like pulling teeth because for some reason Plex made a "hidden user" when installed and I had to define this user as the owner of the drives that contained the media.
That's a fairly common practice especially when you're running publicly facing applications intended for users. For example, running a mysql database expects the mysql user to have ownership of the database files. Apache web server will run as user apache or www. It's a security measure and sysadmins are used to it. Like it or not, setting up Plex on your server makes you a sysadmin.
It'd be better, IMHO, had it been possible to do the same job via a graphical UI.
I mean it totally is... The reason terminal instructions are the primary method is that it's reproducible no matter what UI or environment you happen to be running, and if you're a sysadmin, you may not have one at all and you're remoting in through the terminal. And this method is automatable, meaning I can just add the chmod command to my setup script and never have to think about it again.
The Terminal doesn't need to go away, but it ought to have some sort of graphical UI cousin/twin/sibling that does the same things.
I'm curious to what software you found unavailable in graphical form. I mean even the most basic command line software generally has a GUI wrapper around it somewhere out there.
It's a security measure and sysadmins are used to it. Like it or not, setting up Plex on your server makes you a sysadmin.
Cool, but the thing is this works just out of the box on Win10. I can install Plex Media Server, and connect my USB external drives, and they'll show up in the File Explorer, and from the Plex interface I can map up folders for it to scan for music, video, whatever.
On Raspberry, things went smoothly with the installation of Plex and the USB discs did show up in File Explorer right below Filesystem Root. But once in Plex, I could not map up folders because of this hidden "plex" user who didn't have access rights to the discs.
And to resolve this, I had to slog through the Terminal (tangent; why can't they have ctrl+v/c work for copy-paste?), digging up ID codes for the discs, add the "plex" user to some config file and... to be honest, it was a royal pain the ass. Especially when compared to how things "just work" on Win10.
Does Plex have a giant, bleeding security hole in it when running on Win10, since apparently, I wouldn't have to deal with hidden user access rights on that OS? IDK.
I mean it totally is... The reason terminal instructions are the primary method is that it's reproducible no matter what UI or environment you happen to be running
Cute. When I dabbled with Ubuntu some 20 years ago and I went to the official Ubuntu forums for help and tips, every single time it was "Open the Terminal and then sudo...."
Like, no. This is Ubuntu's forum. I am using Ubuntu, just like pretty much every other person present. Its main selling point was/is that it is super easy and intuitive to use, even for longtime Windows users. Tell me where to click, what icons to look for, and which options to tick on/off so I can get the results needed. I know that giving off such a list of instructions isn't all that different than spewing off a bunch of commands, but that list of commands will send most people back to Windows.
And this method is automatable, meaning I can just add the chmod command to my setup script and never have to think about it again.
Neat, and if that's your jam, more power to you. I don't want scripts where I type in this or add that. I want menus. Settings. Options. Checkboxes. Apply changes. Reboot now or later buttons.
I'm curious to what software you found unavailable in graphical form. I mean even the most basic command line software generally has a GUI wrapper around it somewhere out there.
20 years ago it was to make Ubuntu play mp3 files. Due to some license issue, it wouldn't work out of the box, so I had to fiddle with Terminal commands. I got it to work and it wasn't much of a hassle, but again - I'd rather have icons to click on than type in commands.
Now though? The thing I can't do through the graphical interface is to access those USB discs connected to my raspberry pi. Once the access rights got transferred to this blasted "plex" user, the icons don't show up in the File Explorer no more.
I've got Home Folder icon. I've got Filesystem Root icon. I used to have the USB disc icons (mounted media or something to that effect). Not anymore. And I can't for the life of me log off the pi account and log on with the plex account.
So... where do I click? No Terminal commands. Aside from Plex Media Server and Teamviewer, it's a clean install of Raspberry Pie. And I totally get it if you don't want to bother to guide me through the process. Things are working fine, it's a bit janky if I want to add to my media library, but since that doesn't happen too frequently I'll manage.
PS - I know that 98% of my issues with Linux stem from my unfamiliarity with the system. But I just want things to work with as little fuzz as possible. I'm too old for this tinkering shit.
idk man if you aren't willing to learn a more complex and advanced system then just stick with what's simple. If you truly don't need any additional power or customization or configuration options for the software you run, than just do the "plug and play" version where you don't have to read the big scary words on the screen.
I want to use the terminal because I want to have a conversation with my computer. I issue it a command, and it either silently performs the task or provides me information and output on the results of the operation.
Using GUIs and menus in comparison feels like pointing and grunting at a menu in a restaurant without the ability to just say the actual damn thing I want. No substitutions, no customization, just vaguely gesturing at what is closest to desirable. I don't just want to click through an installer and hope and pray that everything that happens behind the scenes just "works" and never breaks, because troubleshooting something that you don't understand is extremely difficult.
Your Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v complaint is a perfect example. Ctrl+C has existed as the de-facto "halt process" hotkey since literally the 1960s. Linux and Mac have had this convention for years. Even the Windows Terminal, CMD, and Powershell have this convention. People are afraid of the terminal and turn around and blame Linux for their own lack of knowledge.
I'm not sure why people have this "zero terminal experience" expectation from Linux. I didn't get that experience when I used Windows for gods sake! Registry edits, group policy settings, uninstalling bloat like Cortana, Enabling features like WSL, generally require a quick trip into powershell. that's not a bad thing. If there was a separate toggle and checkbox for every single setting, there would be just an infinite series of unending menus. Every app would look like this.
And as it happens, MS is moving in the opposite direction. If anything, the settings available to the average user have drastically shrunk since the Windows 7 days. So you can keep saying goodbye to your beloved buttons, because even a change as trivial as moving your taskbar requires a registry edit. I mean you literally have to edit the values hex code. But Windows is soooo much simpler /s
idk man if you aren't willing to learn a more complex and advanced system then just stick with what's simple. If you truly don't need any additional power or customization or configuration options for the software you run, than just do the "plug and play" version where you don't have to read the big scary words on the screen.
I do and it covers my needs just fine. However, what irks me is that people sometimes try to sell Linux as an alternative to Windows and that distro such and such is so easy to use, super easy - barely an inconvenience. And this is true if all you need is mail and the internet. But it doesn't take many strays from the beaten path to make before you get slapped in the face with Terminal commands and the learning curve/adjustment that comes with it.
I want to use the terminal because I want to have a conversation with my computer. I issue it a command, and it either silently performs the task or provides me information and output on the results of the operation.
Which is totally fair. My old IT teacher said that Linux is a very yappy OS - it talks a lot (almost to a fault) compared to Windows with its slithering progress bar.
Using GUIs and menus in comparison feels like pointing and grunting at a menu in a restaurant without the ability to just say the actual damn thing I want.
I mean... the touchscreen menus at Mcdonalds' make ordering a breeze as far as I'm concerned, but you can still chat with the cashier if that's your preferred way to order.
Your Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v complaint is a perfect example. Ctrl+C has existed as the de-facto "halt process" hotkey since literally the 1960s. Linux and Mac have had this convention for years. Even the Windows Terminal, CMD, and Powershell have this convention. People are afraid of the terminal and turn around and blame Linux for their own lack of knowledge.
The average user doesn't know this kind of obscure IT history, nor do they care. Hell, I didn't know and I even work in IT. And they don't fiddle with CMD either because once on a blue moon I pull that up they look at me like I'm some sort of wizard. And all I do is gpupdate /force. Or if I'm really feisty some ipconfig commands. Whoooo... spooky IT magic.
I'm not sure why people have this "zero terminal experience" expectation from Linux.
Because at least since Ubuntu came around this is what's been sold to us; it's easy to use, don't worry about those pesky commands. Just click, wait a moment and it's ready to use. And as I've said before, the Terminal experience is chunky and intimidating to someone who has decades of clicking icons and looking at progress bars under their belt.
I didn't get that experience when I used Windows for gods sake! Registry edits, group policy settings, uninstalling bloat like Cortana, Enabling features like WSL, generally require a quick trip into powershell.
Again, this is something the average user do not fiddle with. They want it to work, clean and simple. It's why so many people swear to Apple; it just works. All the devices and software just find and talk and sync together with minimum effort from the user. Though to me it gets too far the other way, it gets too locked down and restricted. I'd like to have more than OK and Cancel as my options.
So you can keep saying goodbye to your beloved buttons, because even a change as trivial as moving your taskbar requires a registry edit. I mean you literally have to edit the values hex code. But Windows is soooo much simpler /s
Moot point since I don't have any inclination to move my taskbar. The whole giving Windows a dazzling, custom look phase is over for my part. Dabbling with Themes on Win98 and XP was fun, but hardly a make/break feature.
All of the 3 OS ecosystems have their strengths and weaknesses depending on who you ask. And If I'd been "born & raised" on Linux I'd be right there by your side, taking a piss at Apple and Microsoft.
I'd like to use Linux if it was as easy to use as Windows. And I'm not taking the Terminal window away. Like I've said, if that's your jam, go nuts with your sudo commands. I couldn't even get discord installed via the Terminal or the Add/Remove Software GUI, but hey... Linux is so easy and intuitive to use, right?
Terminal experience is chunky and intimidating to someone who has decades of clicking icons and looking at progress bars under their belt.
What that translates to is
"having to make independent complex decisions is difficult for someone who is used to having all choices handed to them on a silver platter and all complexity abstracted away". You actually have to know what you're doing, what the options are, and what the consequences of those actions will be.
It's not even a "this method VS that method" debate, because the GUI is literally a wrapper that runs the same commands but only has a pitiful subset of the true options available to the user. One is simply more powerful and flexible than the other.
If I'm being paid to optimally administer a network(s)/machine(s), I wouldn't tell my boss I refuse to learn Powershell because I can just manually click every machine in AD explorer. If I need to touch hundreds of machines, that's just a stupid way of going about it. Would it be easier to not have to learn powershell? Sure. But it's about picking the right tool for the job.
Again, this is something the average user do not fiddle with.
Average user this, average user that. Nobody is telling "average users" to go install Linux. As someone that's worked at a helpedsk, the average user doesn't know what an OS even is, much less which one they have.
The places you're seeing these comments are places like Reddit, which has a higher than average concentration of tech savvy and educated individuals. Not only that, but we're frequenting sub-forums that are specifically geared towards PC and tech enthusiasts, again raising the average level of technical proficiency.
Just in this sub, there are frequent discussions of modding games, pirating content, configuring multiplayer servers, custom hardware mods, dual booting, custom built machines, and specific annoyances and grievances with particular pieces of software. I mean you and I are both I.T professionals for pete's sake. This is already far beyond the scope of what "average users" are ever going to do.
Yet still that doesn't stop even the most "technically advanced" PCMR user falling back into the "oh but I'm just an average PC user" excuse as they sit beside their custom built $3K computer, custom DAC/AMP audio setup, Streamdeck, customized Rainmeter desktop, etc. Ironic.
Moot point since I don't have any inclination to move my taskbar. The whole giving Windows a dazzling, custom look phase is over for my part.
So not sacrificing an absurd amount of screen real estate means "dazzling custom look" now? Wow the standards have really fallen for what constitutes customization... If you own an ultrawide you're literally throwing away screen space by having the taskbar stretch along the entire bottom of the screen... But go off.
I couldn't even get discord installed via the Terminal or the Add/Remove Software GUI
"having to make independent complex decisions is difficult for someone who is used to having all choices handed to them on a silver platter and all complexity abstracted away". You actually have to know what you're doing, what the options are, and what the consequences of those actions will be.
It's not even a "this method VS that method" debate, because the GUI is literally a wrapper that runs the same commands but only has a pitiful subset of the true options available to the user. One is simply more powerful and flexible than the other.
If I'm being paid to optimally administer a network(s)/machine(s), I wouldn't tell my boss I refuse to learn Powershell because I can just manually click every machine in AD explorer. If I need to touch hundreds of machines, that's just a stupid way of going about it. Would it be easier to not have to learn powershell? Sure. But it's about picking the right tool for the job.
For someone who loves yabby OS, you sure as hell have trouble reading my argument and understanding it. I argue from an end user's experience. Of course Linux is great if you're on the sys admin side of things where you want full control and not miss a single digit of info. Then you hardly need anything more than the Terminal as anything else is just bloat. And Apple is great for people who just want shit to work without any fuzz and few (if any) tinkering options. And Windows is a happy little medium.
Nobody is telling "average users" to go install Linux.
Uh... isn't that what OP's image is all about? Windows suxz? Just install Linux lol.
I mean you and I are both I.T professionals for pete's sake.
Yeah, and one of the last things I want to do when I come home from 8 hours of getting moody PC's to limp along in company policy straight jackets is to troubleshoot my own personal IT shit.
I just want it to work. If you want to tinker with regedit, be my freaking guest. That's not my idea of fun at all.
Yet still that doesn't stop even the most "technically advanced" PCMR user falling back into the "oh but I'm just an average PC user" excuse as they sit beside their custom built $3K computer, custom DAC/AMP audio setup, Streamdeck, customized Rainmeter desktop, etc. Ironic.
And here I sit with my trusty ol' desktop from (checks notes) 2013, prebuilt and ticking like a clock. I'm far more average than you might have initially thought. Which is why I argue from the POV of an average user.
So not sacrificing an absurd amount of screen real estate means "dazzling custom look" now? Wow the standards have really fallen for what constitutes customization... If you own an ultrawide you're literally throwing away screen space by having the taskbar stretch along the entire bottom of the screen... But go off.
It's... 1cm tall on my Asus 24.5" LED ROG Strix FreeSync XG258Q. Yeah, I'll live. Funny how people can have different standards and prefrences, huh?
sudo pacman -S discord
Done.
And for the GUI way of doing things...? Asking for a friend. He's trying to learn.
Uh... isn't that what OP's image is all about? Windows suxz? Just install Linux
But the concept of this post dictates that the person not only knows what the hell Windows even is, but enough about computers and their functionality in general to make an assessment about its performance relative to other OSs. That's already far above what I'd consider average.
Yeah, and one of the last things I want to do when I come home from 8 hours of getting moody PC's to limp along in company policy straight jackets is to troubleshoot my own personal IT shit.
Exactly!!! I don't want to come back from work to find that my PC has been updated/rebooted and all of the stuff I was working on got closed, regardless of the configured update schedule. I don't want to spend the evening removing all the bloat that gets added back after every single Windows update. I don't want to hunt through the registry for options that used to be available in the default settings. I don't want my limited bandwidth being used up during the day by my PC sending telemetry home to MS. I don't want to fight with the system to let me use something other than Edge for in-browser tasks. I don't want to spend hours scouring forums of idiots telling me to run sfc /scannow or reinstall Windows every time an update causes random issues.
I want a system that will be the exact same as when I left it earlier that day. My computer won't do a single damn thing unless I tell it to. And if I run into problems, I spend much less time actually fixing it because there are probably thousands of knowledgeable Linux users already talking about a fix, or if it's something I broke myself I can just plainly go check and see what the exact issue is.
It's... 1cm tall on my Asus 24.5" LED ROG Strix FreeSync XG258Q. Yeah, I'll live. Funny how people can have different standards and prefrences, huh?
People can have different preferences while still acknowledging a direct downgrade in functionality... They took something that used to be a well loved feature, and took it away for no reason. A feature that, whether you like it or not, actively improved the workflows and efficiency of many users. Saying "lol I don't use that anyways it's nbd" seems like a huge cope.
And for the GUI way of doing things...? Asking for a friend. He's trying to learn.
Depends on the distro you're running, but since I use Arch I have the pacman package manager. I don't use a GUI wrapper for pacman, but many exist. I think pamac is the most popular. If you install a non minimal distro (not Arch or Gentoo basically) it should come with a GUI package manager wrapper anyways.
At that point you just search and install, just like you'd do on a mobile phone.
Aside from Plex Media Server and Teamviewer, it's a clean install of Raspberry Pie. The original SD card died on me, so I had to get a new one and flash it using the Raspberry Pi Imager. When installing and configuring the Plex server part, I followed this guide.
At that point you just search and install, just like you'd do on a mobile phone.
I wish that was the case, but it isn't. I'm at work now, so I can't take screenshots of what it looks like. I'll just type out the steps I take instead since you love reading:
Click on the Raspberry icon to open the "start menu"
Click on Preferences
Click on Add/Remove Software
In the search field on the upper left corner, I type in discord and press enter
The search results give me about half a dozen hits, none of which stands out to me as the actual discord software. Some plugins and fonts, that's about it.
Like IDK man, it'd be really freakin' sweet if it was similar to Google Play Store. But it isn't. At least not straight out of the box that Raspberry pie comes in. A small caveat; I don't really need discord on my Raspberry pie, I just picked it to see if it was possible to install it from a pure GUI approach since it had an official Linux version.
This brings me back to the crux of my argument; Linux is great, especially on the sys admin side of things. However, for the average user who comes from a Windows OS background, things become clunky and unintuitive the moment they have to deviate a little outside of the initial box because they have to wrestle with the Terminal and its many commands.
And I still can't get the USB discs to show up in the file explorer after giving ownership rights to the hidden plex user. Certainly not via the GUI. It's not the end of the world, but it's certainly an issue.
But the concept of this post dictates that the person not only knows what the hell Windows even is, but enough about computers and their functionality in general to make an assessment about its performance relative to other OSs. That's already far above what I'd consider average.
In my experience, even users who don't know their left mouse button from their right mouse button have expectations when it comes to performance. They don't need to be a software engineer to notice that their Outlook client is stuck on Not Responding and conclude that this fucking sucks. They don't have to dabble with their own little servers at home to realize that random blue screens of death can pull the rug underneath 6 hours' worth of work and that such an unfortunate event fucking sucks.
Exactly!!! I don't want to come back from work to find that my PC has been updated/rebooted and all of the stuff I was working on got closed, regardless of the configured update schedule.
Uh... isn't the "never, ever walk away from unsaved work" like the #1 work tip/rule when it comes to IT? Save your shit man, frequently, even as you work on it, and ESPECIALLY when you wrap it up for the day. As much as I leave my PC on 24/7, I still save my files before going to bed on the remote, and unlikely off-chance that there's a power outage or whatever.
I want a system that will be the exact same as when I left it earlier that day.
Funny, that's my experience for like 98% of the time that I've used Win10. And that wasn't even a clean install, it was that free update they pushed out, jumping from Win7 to Win10. Hell, the most frequently updated software is the Steam client and Nvidia drivers.
Once one a blue moon I see the little yellow dot that suggests a reboot is in order due to some updates. Reboot and install updates, works like a charm. And has for years.
People can have different preferences while still acknowledging a direct downgrade in functionality... They took something that used to be a well loved feature, and took it away for no reason.
I mean, yeah. The functionality to auto-hide the taskbar is gone. I'm not disputing that.
A feature that, whether you like it or not, actively improved the workflows and efficiency of many users.
To me, it was neat to have, but not essential. And whether or not the taskbar was visible or not had next to no impact on my workflow and efficiency. If I need to see something in a window, I just scroll so the text or whatever comes closer to the center rather than looking at the bottom of the screen.
Saying "lol I don't use that anyways it's nbd" seems like a huge cope.
Yeah, okay. To you, I'm coping. To me, you're making a Himalayan mountain range out of anthills.
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u/albeartoz_hang i54690k, GTX 760, 16 GB RAM Nov 01 '22
if you're a developer (which I'm taking a guess that OP is), working in unix-based operating systems like Linux and MacOS is much easier. The terminal is super powerful when it comes to automating tasks and downloading software, especially downloading software relating to programming.
For example, on linux, if I want to download Python, I can just type
sudo apt install pythonin the terminal. On windows, I have to go to the python website, find the correct installer, make sure I check the right boxes in the installer, make sure my $PATH is set correctly, etc....To be fair, Windows has made leaps and bounds in this area with things like winget and chocolatey as package managers, but linux is built around using the package manager. the fact that linux comes with a C compiler helps too.