Why is linux still so user unfriendly?

So after 12 yrs being aware of price / quality and not buying the best i this time thought to get myself some Uber gear :wink:

Got myself a 2990WX got on unraid Linux and… Well its improved a LOT since i first used it about 30 or so yrs ago but still… Why oh why is it still so stupidly complicated to install a program with simple click and go ?

I still cant get any temp readings for my threadripper, the VMs etc are easy to install but try and add ANYTHING else and it fails to hold to a simple install.

And for me its not that i cant figure it all out and get the dozen packages installed etc to get something running… but i am getting to an age now that i dont WANT to have to dive into it every single time.
Not to mention the digital illiterates, they wont be able to use Linux in the state it is in now. (unless its ALL preinstalled and they need NOTHING new)

Hope to hear from some of you Linux Gurus on Whyyyyyy ? :wink:

ps i do love Linux for its stability but just like 30 yrs ago the user friendlyness is still missing (although already much better)

(edited out a double word)

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Well, I would have to say that blaming Linux for how unRaid deals with package management is a bit of a stretch…

But, apart from that, Linux does not always have great hardware support for consumer products out of the box, some of that is because the hardware vendors tradionally have not considedered that target audience as a viable market.

But it is also often a question of distros using a older kernel that have yet to implement certain features.

And lastly…
Linux is user friendly, you just need to accept that in a friendship both parts need to accept the others quirks :wink:

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Picking any ONE thing on linux will be a stretch but had to come up with some example :slight_smile:

For now i just run a few VMs at the same time some linux some windows so i can at least get all the things done i HAVE to do without diving into the quirks. Been running it since end of August and i am getting the hang of it again but was just a bit disappointed to see that (not just unraid, also run Ubuntu) still lack the ease of install.

For now i got Unraid mostly setup (only still need temp senoring etc but i guess those drivers for MSI meg creation arent rdy yet)

The reason i went back to Linux after 30 or so yrs is that i got tired of servers just going down because of the auto updates on win10 (talk about losing user friendlyness :wink: )

Probably also partly annoyed with myself, i should have first just put windows on and do all my temp testing for a few weeks in stead of mere days , so i dont need to keep an eye on it that often anymore but still… a new enermax watercooler (AOI) makes me a bit nervous about temps (read dead pump etc)

Anyway thank you for the info and not flaming me to death ;))

I haven’t tried any paid distro ‘s but would they have any stuff like that? At leat for parts on the approved lists?

I doubt they would do temp monitoring of new, niche equipment, but server managing and stuff?

It comes down to who wants to sell this to idiots then support it ?

Anyone ?

Its a great software but its free and who wants to give the mass’s free anything then teach them !

Don’t fret. One day all that is left will be free and open linux and people will pay to learn !

Till then its Windows 10 and Ad’s I put 5 years and Windows is a DE on linux.

#2023 Windows switches to a linux kernel.

VM’s and unRaid don’t fall into the mainstream user category.

You can, in fact, click on a package to install it so long as it is a package intended to be installed on the distribution in use. You cannot click on a braindead archive and simply let it to dump files into directories as you do in Windows. Linux distributions use package managers and Windows does not.

The primary reason long-time Windows users have problems coming to Linux is their attempt to use Linux as if it is Windows, migrating all their habits and expectations wholesale. Linux is not Windows. If someone’s standards for an acceptable OS are established 100% by Windows, then only Windows will stand a chance of being acceptable to them.

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Linux is friendly to users! It’s just being picky about who to be friends with. :wink:

More seriously, if you are installing Linux programs from the web, you’re doing stuff wrong. Use apt, yum, portage or pacman depending on your specific distro flavor. Essentially all software built from source is to be regarded as “Not thoroughly tested yet, this may work for your particular usecase, it may also brick your computer. USE AT OWN RISK!”

If it is thoroughly tested, it will be in your repository as a package, or in one of the many mini-repositories available (this might contain beta software though, so again, use at your own risk).

If you want the absolutely latest and greatest, run a rolling stable release distro like Arch, Gentoo or Debian Sid, and be prepared that anything may break at any time for any reason (and in rare cases, break without a reason whatsoever).

That said, welcome to Linux, have fun exploring the OS!

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I kind of agree with @LostMoon this isn’t standard user stuff.

Apart from some hardware issues if your system wasn’t built for Linux. A normal user shouldn’t have that much of an issue using it

Well, seeing as how unRaid is, iirc, based on Slackware, there would be no official repository for software. Downloading trusted sourcecode from the web and building is not inherently dangerous (note: trusted and sourcecode).

If one is adamant about using Slackware or unRaid tho, I would highly recommend looking into sbotools or sbopkg to manage your packages.

(edit: there is a unofficial package site for Slackware, slackbuilds.org, tho it provides build scripts rather than binaries)

Unraid is so locked in. Im Impressed on what it let linus do. As in
http://www.linusmediagroup.com

Linux’s job is not to be windows. As much as windows is not meant to be a nginx server.

Windows has a cost carryed over to be for the mass’s.

Linux is just open source software that no - one payed anyone to be anything.

Fun fact is that linux can be anything. no one paid anything for that as well and it can be what people pay for.

Minus users…Users are idiots.

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I have no experience with unRaid at all, so I shall not comment on what it allows you to do or not.

However…
I make the assumption that OP have already reasoned around the choice to use it however, and I do not consider myself to be in the position where I have the right to try to “correct” or change that point of view. Rather I can only share what knowledge and experience I have gained and try to make using any version of Linux as painless as possible. And give them the resources to further explore things on their own.

But I will strongly agree with users being idiots. But I still think we should encourage them to keep learning rather than taking a antagonistic approach.
But alas, we are drifting of-topic I fear.

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i take your idiot and put it into me…

My wish list as I have learned should be a base,

For now Giff or whatever my fellow crazy aussie is.

A zen based core…for me I would use as a home user BTRFS pools of drives then have my LInux and Windows OS’s and Snapshots !

I can never have nice things will get in the way :slight_smile:

Trust me, you’re much better off to treat all source code built from the web as experimental. Git repositories could fix it, but at the same time, perhaps not.

And if you are running anything based on slackware, one of the least newbie friendly distros, then sorry but your case is simply irrelevant. Might as well complain about an advanced Calculus math course requiring a ridiculous amount of time to learn.

The more advanced distros exist for a reason, oftentimes very good reasons, but I’m not sure they are the best place to start. Simple as that! :slight_smile:

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And the holy spirit

I do take slight umbrage with the idea of Slackware not being newbie friendly, it provides all the needed documentation and support needed to kickstart you into Linux.

But it is indeed a advanced distro, and I would not recommend starting with it least one is really dedicated to learning Linux/Unix.

And to reiterate. I make the assumption that OP has already considered this choice carefully, and as such we should support what they want to do rather than point them away from it.
We can provide alternatives, but we should also try to give advice to any possible future reader whom encounters this thread :slight_smile:

I may sound snarky in this message, that is due to me being a non-native English speaker. But it is all said in good faith and at times slightly tongue-in-cheek.

That’s his point, to ask a regular end user (which it sounds like the OP is not) to use apt or yum is asking far, far too much.

The software suites are getting better, but I find it ironic that people put so much effort into making those better because “It’s secure”, but when Microsoft tried it people shamed and spat on it before it even took off.


@Zettlinger Linux is not new user friendly. I find that I agree with the Lunduke and Jupiter Broadcasting crowd on this subject. Every time a Linux distro or DE takes pains to be more accessible to users, things break or fall apart.

If someone is open to learning and willing to practice*, the switch will not take much time to get a hold of basic navigation, software management, file management, etc.

Linux is about finding your own way. Much of the community can’t accept that, and their inflated egos, gatekeeping practices, and immaturity influence a lot of the discussion on the subject.

* In my experience, this accounts for a small fraction of the population.

there are distros out there that have temp sensors you can install. Handy linux is one of them!
for every distro to have every app that everyone wants out of the box you would be talking an os that would exceed 10 gig in size.
linux is user friendly But they are not going to hold everyone’s hands all throughout the life of the distro
a user needs to learn the distro they choose. and that includes looking for and installing the software they want to use.
not every user is the same in their desires and computer uses.
I for instance center on digital forensics, smp processing, and server admin with a bit of coding thrown in.
many users here are gamers, a lot of users are generic so to develop a distro that covers all the bases is a moot point
developers of distros may only be teams of a few people or just one or two, unlike corporate built os’s like windows or mac os. you can find software from third parties but it will cost you more than just money.
and if youve been around long enough to see (in depth) how windows evolved since win 3.0 to the present you would have seen how every version took more and more control away from users, Yes there were ways around the control measures but you had to find the yourself.

there are a lot of respins out there that people have tried to customize to their taste and republished for select groups But without advertising funding they rely on sites like distrowatch, distromania, and others But the drawback is usually a 1 or 2 year waiting list before the distro is featured.
Developer forums dedicated to advertising a collections of distros are few and far between and their advertising is usually just word of mouth and posting on different forums.

no its not unfriendly but yes it does require a user to at least learn the basics
and if you are going to use specialised distros and non standard setups (IE.server setups) you have to expect it will be a lot more complex,
by the way here are the temp sensor apps from the mint repositories found using synaptic.
collect-dcore, fancontrol, lm-sensors, psensor, and xsensor.

Uhmm Debs, rpm, flatpacks, software stores etc maybe?
Manny applications are easy to install nowdays, unless some very specific applications.
Proper propierary driver support is still the biggest struggle point on linux.

Mainly because Linux is built by developers for developers, this philosophy is pretty core to linux and effects every thing from a simple config file to package management. Couple this with some unfortunate industry trends, add in an aversion to the gui , and you get a preety prickly set of thorns to tackle when it comes to approaching linux.

The ‘for the dev by the dev’ will always be fundamental to linux, so i dont think linux will ever be a dream to configure setup and customize. there will always be a ‘new’ way to do what needs to be done and more than likely the best approach will be through the terminal, to modify what ever is needed.
and while this is intuitive to those who live an breathe the linux command terminologies and can type accurately 60 wpm or more, it may seem ‘easy peasy’.
but to those of us who are bit slower on the keyboard and can in no way type a single sentence with out using back space at least once … its pure hell.

As for the Industry Trends, the whole simpler is better and more secure by design trends we have been plagued with for the last several years has pretty much alienated many distros from a user base who wants to configure the OS, but dont want to have to jump through hoops for every custom tweak and/or process that may need elevated permissions.

Pretty much leaving us with 2 types of linux to work with . The its too simple and locked down variety thats fine for email and web, and the never ending, ‘edit this config file after this file and that file then this file and oh yeah be sure to have this package installed, oh its not there ?? well add this to that config file and try again’, Variety.

The whole System_d vs Init, im not entirely sure if this is whats responsible for some of the changes im seeing in linux but configuration has become even more burdensome, now requiring you to use a command to launch a process that launches a text editor that allows you to make changes to the config file .

(RANT)
WTH ?? why cant i just open up the damn config file and make the changes ??? but noooo it has to be done through the special command …

Again im not sure if system_d vs init is responsible for this, but it seems to have started popping up around that time. This added even more hoops to jump through to make changes to the OS. (/RANT)

Also not to mention the consumer industries aversion to linux open nature making simple things more difficult than necessary.

regardless the ever changing environment of linux its self, can be a bear.

i do see shimmers of light at the end of this tunnel as more and more distros have become a bit more approachable to those of us who need to configure the os a certain way, and gives you usable access to your hardware.
but sofar we still have a ways to go.

Use a real desktop system instead of a server system.

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