4 ms·

Linux will be eternally doomed to <5% market share as long as it's developers harbor their masochistic fetishization of the linux terminal. You have ostensibly

Linux will be eternally doomed to <5% market share as long as it's developers harbor their masochistic fetishization of the linux terminal. You have ostensibly "user friendly" distros like Ubuntu, that still, in 2024, refuse to implement the standard ctrl+v for paste and add a modern cursor to their terminal. The OS is kept artificially difficult to use, just because it's maintainers get off on knowing it's cryptic interface language. Imagine an LLM better than GPT-4, but the devs only speak Klingon and refuse to implement English because Klingon is more efficient on paper. Then they constantly groan about low adoption and training data availability, while death gripping Klingon as the superior way of interfacing. Please, for the sake of humanity trapped in Microsoft's dungeon, please come down off your CLI high horse and make a user friendly OS.

at_a_remove 3y ago
Around 1999, I said to someone, "You cannot be 'l33t' and also have the Year of the Linux Desktop." And some people really love that l33t feel, right down to git. I've had people here tell me that "reflog" is just as intuitively obvious as "undo." You can't reason with those people. I'm scratching an itch right now to make a wizard-driven application, but in the CLI. Right now I am noticing little subtle bits of friction driven by Arcanery, such as things which aren't easily possible in Windows being available in Linux, but locked behind a hoop or two. Even the input prompt itself in my chosen language is slightly sad.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> You have ostensibly "user friendly" distros like Ubuntu, that still, in 2024, refuse to implement the standard ctrl+v for paste and add a modern cursor to their terminal. The user-friendly distros - correctly - aim to solve this by making terminal use optional, not by taking on the nigh-impossible task of completely changing how input works in the terminal. > The OS is kept artificially difficult to use, just because it's maintainers get off on knowing it's cryptic interface language. Also, that's not the reason. It's not some superiority complex or fetish, it's that the existing terminal paradigm is really good for what it's good for and there's no point in sacrificing the existing user-base in order to try and appeal to a wider audience who will never use it anyways.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  You are correct. If you use a computer to check your email from your grandkids because you somehow still don't have a smartphone - yes, the terminal is optional. But please, enlighten me how an average modern desktop computer user could install a free media codec pack on a user friendly distro without opening the terminal? Linux has this problem where if you want to do anything above the absolute most basic tasks, you have to start goolging and copy+pasting cryptic lines of text into the terminal and cross your fingers that it does what you hope it will. As soon as you break away from the tasks that 95% of users do, you're in for punishment. Mind you, I have been using ubuntu for 18 months now. And have been using Linux on and off for 20 years. I do it because...Micorsoft, but holy shit am repeatedly stunned by how average-user hostile linux is. They just refuse to stop speaking Klingon except for the most absolute basic things.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > But please, enlighten me how an average modern desktop computer user could install a free media codec pack on a user friendly distro without opening the terminal? Do you need to? I thought Ubuntu shipped codecs by default these days. But if it's an extra package, I was pretty sure Ubuntu shipped a GUI frontend to package management these days, and if that's not good enough you can use it to install synaptic and do whatever you need[0][1]. > but holy shit am repeatedly stunned by how average-user hostile linux is. They just refuse to stop speaking Klingon except for the most absolute basic things. To marginally overextend the metaphor, you speak English (which is a terrible mess of a language[2], but it's familiar to you), immigrated into the Klingon Empire, appear to understand that Klingon is actually a more efficient language, and still want the Klingons to stop speaking Klingon and convert to using English, because you want it to be easier to flee the Terran Empire[3] if they did even though most people won't do so regardless. [0] https://itsfoss.com/synaptic-package-manager/ https://itsfoss.com/synaptic-package-manager/ [1] https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/addremove-install-synaptic.html.en https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/addremove-install... [2] I say this as a native speaker: English is a horrible mess of a language, mostly because it started as 3 other languages in a trench coat and never stopped tacking on bits and pieces of other languages. [3] Okay, the metaphor is way more than marginally overextended, but it's not like people would flee the Federation...
wavemode 3y ago
I'm genuinely curious what you see as an ideal state here? Most end-user oriented Gnome and KDE-based desktop OS's (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint etc.) are already mostly configurable from menus, for most features an end-user would need to care about. (If I'm mistaken - what feature did you have in mind which isn't?) Outside of that, just run the application you're trying to run. Why would the user need to worry about the ergonomics of the terminal? Is that something people worry about on Windows and MacOS?

at_a_remove 3y ago

Around 1999, I said to someone, "You cannot be 'l33t' and also have the Year of the Linux Desktop." And some people really love that l33t feel, right down to git. I've had people here tell me that "reflog" is just as intuitively obvious as "undo." You can't reason with those people. I'm scratching an itch right now to make a wizard-driven application, but in the CLI. Right now I am noticing little subtle bits of friction driven by Arcanery, such as things which aren't easily possible in Windows being available in Linux, but locked behind a hoop or two. Even the input prompt itself in my chosen language is slightly sad.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> You have ostensibly "user friendly" distros like Ubuntu, that still, in 2024, refuse to implement the standard ctrl+v for paste and add a modern cursor to their terminal. The user-friendly distros - correctly - aim to solve this by making terminal use optional, not by taking on the nigh-impossible task of completely changing how input works in the terminal. > The OS is kept artificially difficult to use, just because it's maintainers get off on knowing it's cryptic interface language. Also, that's not the reason. It's not some superiority complex or fetish, it's that the existing terminal paradigm is really good for what it's good for and there's no point in sacrificing the existing user-base in order to try and appeal to a wider audience who will never use it anyways.

Workaccount2 3y ago
You are correct. If you use a computer to check your email from your grandkids because you somehow still don't have a smartphone - yes, the terminal is optional. But please, enlighten me how an average modern desktop computer user could install a free media codec pack on a user friendly distro without opening the terminal? Linux has this problem where if you want to do anything above the absolute most basic tasks, you have to start goolging and copy+pasting cryptic lines of text into the terminal and cross your fingers that it does what you hope it will. As soon as you break away from the tasks that 95% of users do, you're in for punishment. Mind you, I have been using ubuntu for 18 months now. And have been using Linux on and off for 20 years. I do it because...Micorsoft, but holy shit am repeatedly stunned by how average-user hostile linux is. They just refuse to stop speaking Klingon except for the most absolute basic things.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > But please, enlighten me how an average modern desktop computer user could install a free media codec pack on a user friendly distro without opening the terminal? Do you need to? I thought Ubuntu shipped codecs by default these days. But if it's an extra package, I was pretty sure Ubuntu shipped a GUI frontend to package management these days, and if that's not good enough you can use it to install synaptic and do whatever you need[0][1]. > but holy shit am repeatedly stunned by how average-user hostile linux is. They just refuse to stop speaking Klingon except for the most absolute basic things. To marginally overextend the metaphor, you speak English (which is a terrible mess of a language[2], but it's familiar to you), immigrated into the Klingon Empire, appear to understand that Klingon is actually a more efficient language, and still want the Klingons to stop speaking Klingon and convert to using English, because you want it to be easier to flee the Terran Empire[3] if they did even though most people won't do so regardless. [0] https://itsfoss.com/synaptic-package-manager/ https://itsfoss.com/synaptic-package-manager/ [1] https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/addremove-install-synaptic.html.en https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/addremove-install... [2] I say this as a native speaker: English is a horrible mess of a language, mostly because it started as 3 other languages in a trench coat and never stopped tacking on bits and pieces of other languages. [3] Okay, the metaphor is way more than marginally overextended, but it's not like people would flee the Federation...

wavemode 3y ago

I'm genuinely curious what you see as an ideal state here? Most end-user oriented Gnome and KDE-based desktop OS's (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint etc.) are already mostly configurable from menus, for most features an end-user would need to care about. (If I'm mistaken - what feature did you have in mind which isn't?) Outside of that, just run the application you're trying to run. Why would the user need to worry about the ergonomics of the terminal? Is that something people worry about on Windows and MacOS?