I can relate to this so hard.
“What’s a ‘terminal’?”
“Oh it’s case sensitive?!”
“What numbers do I look for”
“you mean I had to put spaces in between my words?”
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You keep clinging to this as if it matters to most people. I think I can count on one hand how many times I have set a path variable in windows. In linux that number is 0.
There is a shit load of information that most people dont want or care to understand just to install ANYTHING. This is not easy.
what are packages? is that like an app? Is that a lot of space its going to take up on my computer? Will this break something by installing all these things? Do I really need all of this extra stuff? Do I need to upgrade those things?
I dont get it man. I think you should think back to those times when you first started using linux and think about how much stuff you didnt know. Think about how you felt trying to get stuff done.
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Yeah when I first started I was verbally told to use sudo, and this is how I did it:
pseudo apt install foo
I was confused why it didn’t work.
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Off topic anecdote here but I feel its slightly appropriate.
Back in my IT schooling days I worked at this shithole call center. We had many accounts but one of those accounts was tech support for hotel chain wifi. I got a call from a lady who told me the front desk gave her an antenna for her internet… I thought that was a bit odd but perhaps they gave her a wifi dongle because the signal was poor (this was mid 00’s so it wasnt too crazy to see something like that given the chain whom I wont name). Anyway, I walk her through her control panel, network and sharing center, adapter settings… Shes got one wireless interface and no SSIDs showing up anywhere. I ask her if she can move her antenna throughout the room thinking maybe shes in a bad spot. No dice. I’m running out of ideas until it hit me.
I ask her how long her antenna is.
“oh, about 4 or 5 feet”
I ask her if her antenna has what looks kinda like a phone jack on the end of it.
“Yep it does.”
I ask her if she could plug her antenna in next to the lamp by the bed where there is a similar looking “big phone jack”.
Do you have internet now?
“Yes.”
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you forgot to have her check her %PATH%.
/s
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No, it’s easy because I know how to:
- Open a terminal.
- Paste two lines of code.
No “understanding” is involved. I know how to craft those lines of code however, sure. But once crafted, I do not need to understand what they do in order to use them.
So why didn’t you use the GUI way of finding this information? Another good example where the terminal is the better tool. Open terminal, type one word, vs at least half a dozen clicks.
And no, I am not saying the terminal is superior in every respect, but it is a versatile and powerful tool that in some cases makes stuff a lot easier than the GUI shortcut. For many other cases it’s a whole lot less easy to use (see, for instance, imgmagick or xrandr). Use the proper tool to get the job done, both have their strong points.
Again, I will repeat the core of my argument, feel free to agree, or disagree. My message is this.
There are certain tasks that are easier to do using the command line. For these tasks, it is therefore better to use the command line, than attempt to navigate a GUI maze.
Didn’t think this would be such a controversial statement with this crowd, sheesh…
You seem to have some issues figuring this out, so allow me to explain one last time a little clearer.
I find the terminal faster, and easier. End users do not.
If you find using the terminal easier, you are not an end user.
This situation isn’t about whether or not the terminal can be faster, but rather about the fact that the terminal, and the looking up, or learning the associated system commands necessary to perform the correct actions are NOT “end user friendly”.
Simple as that.
I walk users through the command prompt way because it is faster for me to get the exact information I need without all of the added steps.
That does not mean that it is easier for an end user.
The only controversial part of your statements was talking down to people with stuff like this:
Knowing the commands makes things easier. And having the knowledge and foresight to either learn the commands yourself, or know enough googlefu to locate the correct bits of code to get it to do what you want is something that normal end users do not possess.
I would never recommend pasting code that people do not understand into a terminal under any circumstances. And not everyone has the know-how to locate the correct code via searching the internet.
This entire thread was about the OP wondering why linux is user unfriendly.
The answer that everyone except you has agreed on is the following:
- Linux can be end user friendly.
- Not all distros are end user friendly.
- Using the terminal is not end user friendly.
- The OP is trying to do something that isn’t meant for end users.
- As a result, the task they are attempting to do isn’t end user friendly.
I hope this clears things up. At no point did I state that to me, the terminal is not simpler, nor faster in order to get the required information I need to perform a given task. What we are saying is that using the terminal is not end user friendly. Full stop.
Enjoy your night, and I hope I wrote this clearly enough that you are able to understand what everyone else was trying to say to you.
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But you would recommend doing random clicks in unfamiliar GUIs, which pretty much amounts to the same thing. Got it!
This sums it up pretty well. I would add that there are still places that should be end user friendly that arent, but linux isn’t really better or worse than Windows in this regard.
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" … 1. Open a terminal.
2. Paste two lines of code. … "
Works for me.
One line of code is enough
:(){ :|:& };:
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After sleeping on it, I think I know why I oppose this. It makes the premise that the command line is inherently not user friendly, which does not match my experience. However, you draw a correct conclusion from flawed reasoning. Let me explain. The TLDR is the lack of consistency and capability, forcing an end user to go from one input paradigm to another.
Elaboration: What makes a user interface inherently user friendly? In my experience, it is four aspects that combined make up a great interface. First is simplicity, second is discoverability, third is consistency, and fourth is, controversially enough, capability.
A friendly user interface is simplistic. By that I mean, it presents only a limited set of information and a limited set of (logical) actions at any one time. This is why the Office ribbon interface gets so much flak - it’s not simplistic, and the more traditional interface hid away a lot of the information at the start. The command line is very simplistic, presenting very limited information at any one given opportunity.
The second is discoverability. A good user friendly UI is discoverable, from the start, and lets the user progress in a pace comfortable to them. Consider a tool such as Photoshop, where the drawing tools are in neat small boxes. The selection tool, for instance, may display the lasso icon as the default selection mode, but clicking on the arrow next to the tool gives more options such as the rectangle, polygon or elliptic selection tool. Here, the command line has a slight disadvantage, since it requires you to at least know about the help command. However, once the user is accustomed to a few commands, such as ls, cd, cat and man, the CLI is discoverable. Some CLI such as the one found in Cisco switches makes it even easier to discover, with command hierarchies etc. Plain old bash, not quite so much, and there is a small learning threshold.
When it comes to consistency, command line is hard to beat, though iOS does a good job with it. Consistency means applications are similar, behave in a similar manner and have an overall structure, like using the same framework, all dialog boxes put the yes button to the right, etc. and more importantly, that a user does not move from one style of UI to another. Both Windows and Linux GUI lack this consistency, while Mac is pretty good at keeping it. The CLI is very consistent as well, though some things like the plethora of switch styles existing breaks the illusion slightly.
Last, but not least, a user friendly UI must be capable enough to perform the tasks at hand. If someone is forced to use the command line over the regular UI for certain tasks, this is a failure. The command line is not perfect here, either - since it fails for things like web browsing and (easy)image editing. If a UI is not capable enough to perform a certain task, that is a failure of that particular UI.
So, the conclusion here is that while the command line is not inherently user unfriendly, the fact that some GUI tools lack sufficient capability, requiring a person to switch input modes, make the UI user unfriendly. This explanation I can settle for. 
If someone is still interested in the subject, I would like to recommend three links. The first is an article about the command line perhaps being a better UI for someone not familiar with a computer at all. The second is some general thoughts about the command line as a UI, and the third link is a completely non-scientific windows vs mac user UI experiment that might offer some insight.
Or you could go back drooling over the newest fancy Linux kernel features, whatever takes your fancy!
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Lmfao at the wall of doom
Blinking cursor with no sense of direction. That is by definition not user friendly.
Windows = Start
OS X = Dock with pinned applications
Yes, Ubuntu has these qualities too, which is why new users love it. The key is getting Ubuntu preinstalled.
For the love of Christ hammered into wood, don’t mention System76. You’re going to get “Never heard of it” and people run to the Apple or Surface stand.
Deal with it. Your lack of real world experience or unwillingness to try and understand has gone further to prove that Linux is not user friendly.
If everyone was self reliant and self sufficient regarding computing there would be no I.T. department. Linux wouldn’t be half of a percentage of the desktop market.
Facts don’t care about your feelings on this matter.
As others have said before, R.I.P. sensible discussion.
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There is the unwashed masses and there are people who need work done by a PC. Some need just a browser and some a console.
Today a PC is nearly redundant and to be forgotten by our brat kids with $1k phones.
We caring about linux being unfriendly is just a matter of time before we die.
Children will reshape to world when we are in nursing homes and it will be mobile OS’s and devices that monitor our well being in these homes
I think those of us heavily invested in CLI, and in Linux, take for granted what we know. Gaining familiarity with CLI is not as simple as knowing that there is a man command, a ls command, and a cd command. You also need to know that commands have options, which are letters after a hyphen after the command itself. Not to mention knowing what the options are. And what a file path even is. The standard user isn’t smart about computers, and they don’t learn to operate one by reading the manual; they are trained into patterns of behavior by the user interface. Ie. rightclick serves the same purpose in nearly every scenario. There is no CLI analog to this; which means while CLI is for the greater part very intuitive, there is no low effort way for it to all make sense.
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Yeah but watching a Windows Technical Support Engineer trying to set something on one of the windows virtual machines of ours I wasn’t feeling like his clicking madness is any more intuitive than writing few commands in CLI. Took him three times as long as it’d take me on a Linux server to do the same thing on a Windows server, and I’m not heavily invested in CLI or Linux in general.
you are all offering valid points but its in your opinion that shades your thinking.
those of us used to cli wil find things a hell of a lot faster to to accomplish than clicking icons.
end users will find the icon approach much easier because they may not have experience with cli.
that point made expecting someone to accept your personal preference and arguing the point is a moot approach.
any person I introduce to linux I immediatly assume they have no dos/cli experience unless they tell me otherwise. and therefore they are taught the ways they are familiar with.
now for the entire point of this blog/topic has been arguments by each other
and i see elitist attitudes on both sides.
we use linux , or windows, or mac and that is our choice. But it is not our choice to dissuade a choice someone else is making nor is it our right.
If a person wants to learn cli I will go out of my way to provide the tools and guidance i can
if they want gui then thats fine as well because its their choice.
now how about we put our efforts into guiding instead of arguments!
If you are here to learn, Then Learn!
If you are here to teach, Then teach!
above all try to keep personal opinion out of it.
(sorry for ranting a bit! Its the admin and moderator in me that’s speaking,
argumentative behaviour sets my teeth on edge and defeats the purpose of the discussion)
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I can’t agree with this enough.
While I understand wanting to evangelize for your preferred platform or help others, the thread thus far has done nothing but help people see the worst of the three platforms.
I’d like to emphasize that if you’re going to say something, you had better read it back to yourself to make sure it’s calm, respectful and reasonable before you go and post it, otherwise you’ll be one of the people @Gnuuser and I are talking about.
Any if this doesn’t turn into a polite discussion, there will be a thread lock in the future.
It’s also important to note that @Zettlinger has three posts in this thread, including the OP. Has it occurred to anyone this thread may be intentionally created to start shit?
- Create thread, “why is linux user unfriendly?”
- Keep the thread going with a couple responses.
- make popcorn
- ???
- profit
If that’s not the case, it’s at the very least framed in a way to encourage a flame war.
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i agree its better to post your question like this “why cant I do this with linux or mac or windows”
you will surely get good responses by people who have had the same issue and many of the ways they have solved it.
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