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I started using Ubuntu Linux about 8 years ago, about the same time I started my CS degree at school. Over the years, my interest in Windows shrunk to essential

by dgzl 8y ago

I started using Ubuntu Linux about 8 years ago, about the same time I started my CS degree at school. Over the years, my interest in Windows shrunk to essentially just PC gaming. When school got serious I stopped gaming as much, and all my needs from both school and personal computing were met with open source tools. Every once in a while I would try a new distro as live CD, just for kicks, and to see how things are different. I learned how to use my own window manager and terminal program. I found that the necessary elements needed for working Linux are actually quite small, and most everything beyond that is for convenience. When you learn to use the terminal, your entire perspective on how to use a computer changes. No longer are you wasting time swishing your mouse around, clicking on folders and icons. Instead, you live on the keyboard, using hotkeys, personal aliases, tab completion, STDIO piping, dot files, terminal based text editors... There's a lot to master. But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. We can play music with MPD/Ncmpcpp, play Tetris, retrieve HN articles and view comments, retrieve 3-day local weather with animations, we can even browse webpages. It's actually a fun world in the terminal, and we can eliminate the need for otherwise fatty software. If you're looking for something that Just Werks as a Windows replacement, any Ubuntu derivative will be fine. If you're looking for something that requires more work but might spur interest (i.e. hobby), you might try Arch or Gentoo. And if you're looking for rice examples, check out Reddit/unixporn.

Krasnol 8y ago
> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human. Every time I use my Linux laptop I find myself googling up commands or god knows what weird solutions to problems that should be easy and are in their equivalent on Win. It's such a waste of time and I feel lost if I can't go online to do it. There is a long way for Linux to get there and I see a solution where you can have both. It does not contradict itself. But the biggest problem out there I see is the aversion (or even hate) in relevant parts of the Linux community towards everything GUI.
- dgzl 8y ago
  I recognize your position, and I even hold it myself sometimes. A fancy Arch setup really is just a glass Castle, and Windows is fairly sturdy with minimal effort. Being able to have convenient out-of-box support for nearly all kinds of SW/HW, and an easy GUI for usage and installation... It really lets you kick back and not have to think about things. The terminal definitely requires mastery, there's no argument about that, however the ability gained is just tremendous. Even the basic tools like ls, cat, grep, less, man... Are very easy to use, and are very rich with functionality.
  - Krasnol 8y ago
    Sure they are. I never said otherwise. That's why I wouldn't want it to go away. I just don't want to _have_ to do it. And if we look back on the topic, with me growing older, I don't believe I'll fully transition to Linux in my lifetime.
- Alan_Dillman 8y ago
  "One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human." Blech. Do you remember when games like Leisure Suit Larry went from text input to "click the right pixel"? All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. You can see all the options because there aren't as many.
  - Krasnol 8y ago
    Sure I remember. Do you remember all those games that came with the mouse? And they are still coming.
  - zbentley 8y ago
    > All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. About games, I agree with you. But when doing work, or even non-gaming fun things on a computer, "exploration and hilarity" are damn near the last things I want to be expected of me. I want to get things done in a cognitively efficient way, even if that's not the most temporally efficient way. That means: if an application wants me to learn new skills, they should be limited enough as to be relevant to the immediate task, discoverable, and with a clear, immediate path towards competence. No "Well, you want to do $x in a GUI, but have you considered learning the CLI? it's much more flexible, and the next 10 things you might want to do with $x will be so easy (once you've mastered the CLI)!" I may never need to do 10 more things with a given program/task; I may be happy to do what I need inefficiently but in a familiar way; if I do need to do more in the future, I'll set aside time to learn how rather than getting interrupted on my way to a specific goal unrelated to leveling up my proficiency at something. The attitude of many people and ecosystems in the Linux community seems to be like that. The tools themselves are fine once you learn to use them, but the people and conventions that proliferate those tools seem to often lose sight of their (desktop, not power/dev/sysadmin) users' needs for immediate specific task-accessibility, discoverability, and incremental increases in proficiency rather than "exploratory" or deep-end-first learning styles. I say this as someone who spends just as much time obsessively, wastefully over-customizing my development workflow/shell/etc. as most programmers I know. I do that for fun, but while I find it fun, I recognize that most of my users do not, and likely never will.

by dgzl 8y ago

Krasnol 8y ago

> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human. Every time I use my Linux laptop I find myself googling up commands or god knows what weird solutions to problems that should be easy and are in their equivalent on Win. It's such a waste of time and I feel lost if I can't go online to do it. There is a long way for Linux to get there and I see a solution where you can have both. It does not contradict itself. But the biggest problem out there I see is the aversion (or even hate) in relevant parts of the Linux community towards everything GUI.

dgzl 8y ago
I recognize your position, and I even hold it myself sometimes. A fancy Arch setup really is just a glass Castle, and Windows is fairly sturdy with minimal effort. Being able to have convenient out-of-box support for nearly all kinds of SW/HW, and an easy GUI for usage and installation... It really lets you kick back and not have to think about things. The terminal definitely requires mastery, there's no argument about that, however the ability gained is just tremendous. Even the basic tools like ls, cat, grep, less, man... Are very easy to use, and are very rich with functionality.
- Krasnol 8y ago
  Sure they are. I never said otherwise. That's why I wouldn't want it to go away. I just don't want to _have_ to do it. And if we look back on the topic, with me growing older, I don't believe I'll fully transition to Linux in my lifetime.
Alan_Dillman 8y ago
"One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human." Blech. Do you remember when games like Leisure Suit Larry went from text input to "click the right pixel"? All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. You can see all the options because there aren't as many.
- Krasnol 8y ago
  Sure I remember. Do you remember all those games that came with the mouse? And they are still coming.
- zbentley 8y ago
  > All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. About games, I agree with you. But when doing work, or even non-gaming fun things on a computer, "exploration and hilarity" are damn near the last things I want to be expected of me. I want to get things done in a cognitively efficient way, even if that's not the most temporally efficient way. That means: if an application wants me to learn new skills, they should be limited enough as to be relevant to the immediate task, discoverable, and with a clear, immediate path towards competence. No "Well, you want to do $x in a GUI, but have you considered learning the CLI? it's much more flexible, and the next 10 things you might want to do with $x will be so easy (once you've mastered the CLI)!" I may never need to do 10 more things with a given program/task; I may be happy to do what I need inefficiently but in a familiar way; if I do need to do more in the future, I'll set aside time to learn how rather than getting interrupted on my way to a specific goal unrelated to leveling up my proficiency at something. The attitude of many people and ecosystems in the Linux community seems to be like that. The tools themselves are fine once you learn to use them, but the people and conventions that proliferate those tools seem to often lose sight of their (desktop, not power/dev/sysadmin) users' needs for immediate specific task-accessibility, discoverability, and incremental increases in proficiency rather than "exploratory" or deep-end-first learning styles. I say this as someone who spends just as much time obsessively, wastefully over-customizing my development workflow/shell/etc. as most programmers I know. I do that for fun, but while I find it fun, I recognize that most of my users do not, and likely never will.