If you find 'gpg --gen-key' too hard to use, I don't know what to tell you. It presents (at least on my system) a very clear prompt to type a passphrase. Maybe

If you find 'gpg --gen-key' too hard to use, I don't know what to tell you. It presents (at least on my system) a very clear prompt to type a passphrase. Maybe you should blame your distribution instead of gpg?