Why is linux still so user unfriendly?

Agreed. Windows installers (the traditional style) are even better than this for one two reason: it’s shiny, and the path forward is very clear.

But for people familiar with repos and CLI, obviously apt/dnf/whatever is better for them. The problem is that they’re not in the majority. Not even a significant minority.

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False premise.

Users want to go through what gives them the least hassle (or, atleast appears that way). What is the least hassle in the above case? To learn three simple commands and go on with your life, or to perform 15 steps that must be repeated three or four times?

The UI doesn’t really have to be shiny (appearance adds to the quality feel), but it does have to be responsive and snappy. And since the command line in Windows is atrocious, many think of the command line as that stinky, limiting thing from the DOS days.

Linux is simple, if all you want to do is simple things. But it can easily be so much more - if you care. We are in agreement though, that most won’t care. Sad but true. :slightly_frowning_face:

I’ve already been proved right.
Chrome OS is the largest Linux distro, by a royal margin.

Users want books with big pictures, not the arch wiki.
You ask average people to open the terminal and their reaction is “what kind of nerd level hackershit is this?”

It can be, it just needs a common linux app store that’s supported by the three distros that matter.

Give the average person an android phone without the play store and see how well it goes.

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Even I can’t use Android without the play store. Simply because I’m not going to pirate apps I need, that are not free.

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" … Why oh why is it still so stupidly complicated to install a program with simple click and go ? … "

Ok. Simple click install.

I use opensuse. when I want to install a package (program} I simple go to the official opensuse software website ( https://software.opensuse.org/ ), search for the program I’m looking for. And if it’s there, “simple click install”.

If it’s not there, I go to the PackMan repo ( http://packman.links2linux.org/ ) or use the repos listed here ( https://en.opensuse.org/Additional_package_repositories ). And again, if there, “simple click install”.

Or I just use the " Software Management" in the Mate menu.

If it’s not in those places, then I have to resort to some Linux Voodoo. Doesn’t happen very often, but it still does.

Now I don’t remember how other distros handle installing apps, been a while (years) that I’ve used anything other then opensuse. But I would assume that for the most part other distos should have similar ways of doing the same thing, “one click install”.

Users want it simple, yes.

However, simple does not neccessarily mean GUI. Two distinct different things, and you’d do well remembering that. Try changing your PATH variable in Linux vs Windows, for instance.

As for Chrome OS, the reason it’s the biggest Linux distro by far has more to do with the success of Chrome than the inherent simpleness of the OS. Most people have heard of Chrome and Android and trust Google to deliver a good experience.

Or the terminals they initially used were very, very slow. And the keyboards required a lot of force to use. Printing terminals (teletypes) were used for the first few years.

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This is some valid points, and begs the question: what is actually user friendly?

Can we try to come up with a way of quantifying user friendlyness?

Mind, I think user friendly is a distinctly separare entity from:

  • ”Easyness”
  • Usability
  • Simplicity

Actually some users (like me) are quite happy with the arch wiki; I’ll admit it’s not ideal for those users who don’t want to put the effort in. And I don’t think those who don’t want to put the effort in should be ignored, but writing clear, simple documentation for this class of users is hard and tedious (I’ve done plenty of it).

And the terminal is where system management takes place; including Windows (at least if you’re managing several hundred servers). It’s also a good way of sending instructions on diagnosing/fixing a problem - doing similar with a gooey and you’ll be back and forth all day.

I wish the gentoo wiki was as frequently updated as the arch wiki.

There have been many times that I have had to turn to the arch wiki for additional documentation that I then modify for gentoo in order to get things working like VFIO and webcam support. The gentoo wiki is quite frankly ass when it comes to more advanced user-specific features, which thankfully the arch wiki has in spades.

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Also the thing to remember, is that when most people refer to “user-friendly” what they actually mean is “end user friendly”. The majority of people who intentionally turn to Linux are, most of the time, already power users, and as such we cannot fairly compare the two.

There are plenty of distros that cater to end users, and there are distros that are more for power users. Most of us have been heavy-handed power users for so long that we forget what it is like for end users.

My typical recommendations for end users proper is to stick with ubuntu or linux mint. Both are quite simple to use, and very much user friendly. Often times more user friendly than windows.

But I will repeat what others have said in the thread in regards to unRAID: It is very much not an end user oriented distro, it is oriented to power users who want a platform for media storage, with some capabilities for running jails for some program specific functions such as Sonarr, Radarr, and Plex.

Now I would argue that the unRAID is far more oriented to power users as a result, especially those that are wanting a custom solution for their media storage and as a local streaming platform.

Platforms that provide that kind of support are more akin to a server oriented OS than a desktop OS. And last I checked, end users do not run servers for hosting their own content.

The best way to handle these advanced levels of functionality then, given that end users will NOT be using them under any circumstances, is to instead orient them to the power users.

Now power user oriented software typically leans more on the power side instead of the user friendly side, although there are some easier to use and manage power user distros, I would argue that most are more akin to managing a proper server than using a Desktop OS.

It seems like you are wanting a simple to setup and configure device that provides advanced features and functionality as you have become annoyed with the solutions that most companies have put on the market. It seems like you want to have something to use that will give you the options and power that you want, but without the hassle. Unfortunately the demand for such a thing is fairly low, as users are often encouraged to instead become power users in order to leverage those advanced features.

As an aside, if you are trying to setup a home media server, I cannot recommend the FreeNAS tutorial enough, as I would argue that FreeNAS is a far better platform than unRAID.

Sorry for the long rant.

Hopefully I offered some additional insight that you may find useful. I can go more in-depth and try to explain a little better some of the specifics if anyone would like.

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Today’s winner of the internet :point_up:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/WildGiganticIndri-size_restricted.gif

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If you use duckduckgo, there is a bang for searching software.opensuse.org
!susepkg

:joy: Savage.

I kinda did the same to my mom but she knows. Didnt have any problems though because all she does is browse the internet and occasionally print via network printer.

I certainly wouldnt expect her to be able to figure out how to get libre office installed though. She absolutely could (with some minor struggling) get MS office installed on her previous machine.

I think linux in general is only unfriendly to those who are older and basically stuck in their ways (no offense). I’m in my 30’s now and I’ve felt that slow down to learn. I can imagine it only gets worse. If someone started on the linux path at a younger age it wouldnt likely be too bad.

People who didnt grow up around a terminal dont have any idea what to do with one. Its imposing and scary. What if they type something wrong and it breaks something? Clicking is easy because everyones been trained to do it. Its not about whats actually faster at all. People want familiarity and comfort over speed.

Changing a path variable is not something normal users are going to be doing. You or I might do something like that but my beloved mother wouldnt know what the hell a path variable is.

Also cut the attitude. We have enough loonux elitists around here. :wink:

I agree. I wish I had started with that before just googling random problems on ubuntu, but this is the crux of the matter. We’re not actually talking about users like us, we’re talking about the average person who doesnt know the arch wiki exists.

I disagree. People like you and I might default to these things but thats because its what we know to do. Average computer user is not touching the terminal, or doesnt even know of its existence.

:+1: This man gets it.

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So what you’re saying is:

  1. End users decide what is easy
  2. End users already know tool A
  3. End users do not learn new stuff
  4. Therefore, tool B is not easy per definition.

Which basically means everything the user is not familiar with is hard. I feel there is a logic lapse there somewhere, but alright… :thinking:

Now, in all fairness; IS the command line for everyone? Of course not. This is why the Ubuntu Software Center exists, for instance, and if we’re talking end users they would rarely have to venture outside the software center, and when they do, they have their friendly local Linux user to help them. Which is pretty much same as on Windows.

For everyone else, the command line is there in all it’s white-on-black glory, to use at your convenience and when you choose it, and it is for many cases the absolutely best tool for the job. Like when you need to alter the path variable, manage installed programs, run a kill command or edit a config file at an obscure place in the file system.

Of course there are times when other tools are better, too, but the topic was “why is Linux so dang hard?” and the answer to that particular question is often “because you’re expecting it to be Windows” and/or “because you are not using the command line”.

So if the advice “Easiest way to do abc is to use the CLI tool xyz” is Linux elitism then sure, I’m an elitist prick, guilty as charged. :slight_smile:

Experience decides what is easy. Years of windows use means that most people inherently understand how to do things with it already.

Some will, some wont. You didnt read most of my post I’m guessing. I talked about this specifically.

Whats so hard to grasp here? Learning something new and different IS hard. That doesnt mean its bad but it does mean that some people will choose not to learn. Especially when they are learning a different way to do the same things they already know how to do.

In the wise words of AvE, “You gotta piss with the cock ya got” and buddy not all of us are created equal.

Then why are you defending it so vehemently as the go to solution? Its not even for most friendo.

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y91Dmrk

They dont want help… they want you to make it work.

You say that as if your average user does this in any form on a regular basis.

Look, you obviously mean well but I dont know if you lack real world experience or if you actually believe that everyone can just flip a switch and start using linux.

I am the sysadmin for a small company of ~30 users. The majority of my troubleshooting is spent just killing and restarting tasks for them because they dont even know what to look for in the processes tab of taskmanager.

You expect people like that to learn how to use aptitude or [insert your favorite package manager here]?

You expect them to know the exact names of things to install via terminal? Hell I cant even do that. Sure the software center exists but everything they’ve ever known or installed before likely doesnt exist in linux space.

Those are surface answers that dont examine the actual problem. Why is this person expecting it to be like windows? Why do they need the command line?

Because something is easy for you doesnt mean it must be easy for everyone. Moving to linux for the first time is a culture shock. You cannot expect people who dont work with it on a daily basis or have spent hours trying to figure out what things mean to just apt-get install <everything>. Just the mere suggestion that people will have to learn an entirely new way of doing the EXACT SAME THING they already know in another OS is not a fun feeling.

Finally I will leave you with my thoughts from the previous post I think are most important to think about.

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The terminal is not end user friendly. It is as simple as that. End users like an intuitive UI with a very simple UX. They like to have their hand held, and to be told what is the best thing to do, with a button to do it, without them having to think about it or even understand why.

Power user software, like unRAID, are not meant for end users, they are loaded with options that end users will not understand how to properly configure without significant knowledge and experience, which would put them at the transitioning point from an end user to a power user anyway.

End users like things that are intuitive, that require almost no explanation, and that behave in a way which is intuitive to them.

But what comes as intuitive to end user is not what is intuitive to a power user who understands even a little bit of the nature of the underlying software.

An end user wants something to behave in a way that they can easily relate to.

End users do not like having to use tools. End users like being able to push buttons that do all of the thinking and hard work for them, with all of it being presented in a simplistic fashion.

“Press this button and x will happen” “Press this button instead and y will happen”

They don’t want to have to think to hard about how it works, they just want it to “work” the way they think it should.

It is less of them not working to learn something, and more of them getting easily frustrated because it doesn’t work the way they think it should.

Most power user oriented software just doesn’t cater with a UI or UX that is intuitive from the perspective of end user because most of their users are power users who don’t need it. Instead they seek to add additional functionality, and provide more power to the power users.

So when an end user looks at a piece of power user oriented software, it seems unintuitive to them, and they get frustrated.

To them, an iPhone is intuitive, whereas you put an iPhone in my hand and nothing seems intuitive, and I frustrate myself because it doesn’t behave the way I think it should. The same applies to an end user just from the other end of the spectrum.

I prefer a ton of options, that I can then research in order to better understand how to use. End users prefer very simple, easy to understand options that don’t require any documentation or explanation in order to use.

It has less to do with what is familiar, and more as to what is intuitive.

Presently to end users, iPhones and Windows are intuitive. Command line utilities and digging into the guts of a program are not intuitive.

End users want this:
image

Not this:
image

Even if the terminal is a “shorter” or “quicker” way of doing it. They don’t mind pushing more buttons, as long as they are buttons for the most part.

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Because often times it is the most efficient solution to your problem. Again. Setting your path variable? Compared to the Windows way of doing this, all you need to do is open up your terminal and paste in:

echo "export PATH=~/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc
source .bashrc

… Which, to me, involve fewer steps AND less confusion.

If the steps involved is opening up a program and paste in two or three lines in that program, I think that can universally be called easy. You do not even have to learn the command line, just follow the instructions.

Of course, not as easy as two click installs, but still pretty easy.

It is easy because you understand what you are doing. You understand what the commands do.

For a standard end user, command line commands might as well be in chinese, because they don’t understand what they do.

I have walked end users through giving me their IP countless times, and there are many users who still struggle to even pull up a command prompt and type in ipconfig and read off a series of 4 numbers. Even if I have previously walked them through it 30 times. This is not hyperbole. This is fact.

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@wertigon If you don’t get it from @adubs and @sil3ntpr0digy’s post, you never will.

Yeah man those fucking plebs will be lost without setting their path variable in CLI…

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