Let’s not cherrypick scenarios to try and pretend Linux is easier than Windows. Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options, never mind putting them into a terminal window where they could seriously fuck up their machine. What about clicking the download link on a webpage, clicking next a few times and having them software on your machine, compared to having to build something from GitHub (how many people here have never had to do that?).
Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options, never mind putting them into a terminal window where they could seriously fuck up their machine
Maybe this is a problem that we should be addressing, rather than just making technology more of a black box, and raising generations of people who have no fucking concept of how any of it works.
If you have a driver’s license, do you know a car works besides the basic maintenance that is checking your oil and keeping the tires inflated? Some people don’t even do that last one, while it’s a thing you should check regularly.
I think it’s a good thing the general public is able to use a computer without knowing the inner workings, but it also shouldn’t be obscured from them if they want to know/learn.
This applies to pretty much all “Linux good, Win/MacOS bad” memes. I just assume that people either aren’t really serious about them and it’s just tongue in cheek, or they don’t have any contact with regular people.
I used to work as a(n assistant to the) sysadmin and the things I got called over never stopped to amaze. For instance, there was a case when software was updated on the work machines and I got called because some lady couldn’t use Adobe Acrobat. “It is asking me something, I don’t know what”. I come over and it’s just a TOS Accept/Decline window.
Some people do not understand computers to an extent that they can lock up in a state of confusion when a button has been moved 100px in any direction from its usual position.
Compiling from GitHub is cherry picking the worst case especially for “most normal people” and frankly they should be using the software store GUI in their DE to install and update software with nice easy buttons to click.
Frankly software management for a normal person generally is easier on Linux than it is on Windows for stuff made to run on Linux.
But don’t worry someone will respond with nvidia’s shitty proprietary drivers.
nvidia’s shitty proprietary drivers.
; )
Let’s not cherrypick scenarios to try and pretend Linux is easier than Windows. Most normal people are…
Let’s not cherry pick users then. I don’t care about your normal users. My experience is better on Linux.
Open terminal
See whether the app is in my distro’s repos, flathub, or snapcraft (It’s not)
Go on the internet, search up the app’s name
Download the AppImage (might be a virus)
LibFuse2 is not installed (fuck me)
Install LibFuse2
Install Gearlever to integrate AppImage into my desktop
I can finally launch the app
Fuck, I hate AppImages so much. Never heard of gearlever, thanks i hope this helps a lot.
Edit: Ok Gearlever is pretty great! Now I can finally open Heroic normally. That pissed me off for so long.
> doesn’t use arch/nix
“why cant i find my package in the repos?”
Ah yes, downloading builds from unvetted third parties and running their installers as root. Truly the Linux way.
IDK, but I more often had issues with installing apps to Linux than to Windows, usually dependency-hell related ones, but once I had trouble enabling snap on Linux Mint.
but once I had trouble enabling snap on Linux Mint.
Seems like a win
If you’re enabling Snap on Mint, you might as well install Ubuntu.
When you make fun of something that really isn’t an issue it just makes your side look worse. Windows has real problems, but installing shit ain’t it.
My dad can install anything on windows with clicks, he can’t do shit with a terminal.
I’m a power user and love GUIs. I’ll use git desktop all day everyday, instead of typing shit in a command line. It’s one button press vs typing paths and hoping you don’t misspell shit.
I don’t really get the whole command line fetish, there are no extra points in life for doing things the harder way.
A simple analogy is, would you rather have keyboard with a-z and symbols you can use to build words/sentences, or would you want a wordlist you can scroll and click, while expanding words in groups, and having to find non-frequent words with a lot of difficulty to make up sentences.
Command line use is harder if you come from gui. But the main use case of command line are:
- automation: anything you can do in a command line, can be copied in a script,
- uniformity: every software now has almost the same format of use,
- flexibility: gui almost always has less options than command line, and many times options are hidden within a lot of tabs and options.
- Auto complete: whenever someone complains about terminal being hard to use and spelling mistakes I think about this. I think many people that come from GUI don’t know about auto-completion on terminal. It’s easy to see which options are available, easy to choose files, wildcards for multiple files, and all that
- piping: command line allows you to chain one command with another. You have a command to list all your music files, chain that with a search command to search files within them. Now if you need to search in a python code, you use the same search command, just different command to read the file. You basically have lego blocks (old ones) that can be used to make anything.
I can understand people being afraid of command line when they start, but I think many people come with biases and don’t use good terminal and other tools to make things easier.
Ah, yes. I also love it when I search for firefox on my new PC with Edge (without adblocker) and get sponsored malware in the results.
I still use windows but I think installing software on Linux is way more convenient. Especially with the AUR.
Yay -S app is hard? Or apt install app? Or flatpak?
Being used to a habit doesnt make the habit the default way. Humans adapt quickly.
apt install funbox funbox not found apt install fun-box fun-box not found apt install openfunbox openfunbox not found Google openfunbox “use apt install open-funboxxx”
All of that is harder than a double click, yes.
There are not msny apps installed in windows using only a single double click…
Ok i double clicked on my desktop, nothing happened. Can you elaborate?
You’ll figure it out. You seem very bright.
You don’t
The GUI app centers on most distros are quite usable without command line wizardry and reduces the risk of dodgey download sites
I can’t remember the last time I got a DLL error on my Windows laptop, honestly. I don’t think that’s ever happened on my current computer.
I got one on my work laptop this week. It’s controlled by a shitty management software that is used by our IT, but still.
Wait till you accidentally overwrite the system python.
