They'll cast you back to the Windows realm with all their toxic might

- Thats the neat part, we dont need to and theres literally no benefit in doing so. Heres the cycle
  Linux user suggests Linux to eveyone (like a dumbass) -> people install Linux -> its not a Windows clone -> people get pissed and complain (without doing anything constructive) -> people reinstall Windows
  The fact is the more nontechnical people use Linux the more complaints maintainers get, the less detailed bug reports become, and the increase to funding/contributions will be mininal if even noticeable.

Been using Linux for almost two decades now. Mostly Ubuntu and now recently Linux Mint.
- True Linux users build their own kernel and distro from scratch from an environment running directly in EFI
  
  Pff, I carve my own CPUs from compacted sand, like real men.
  
  @wander1236 @Lexam with tcc, this should be possible...
  https://github.com/andreiw/tinycc
- normie users should be able to everything without using a terminal

Eh. I'm mostly a power user, all day at work in terminals and keyboard shortcut galore.
It doesn't prevent me from laying back and running a "filthy casual" kubuntu with little to no setup at all. At one point you reach the state where you just want to use your computer, not tinker with it all the time.
- This is why Arch never stuck for me. I work with Linux all day. I don't want to spend my free time fixing my own shit because a update broke the bootloader.
  
  This is ultimately why I switched from Arch... Now I've just got an Arch distrobox and if it breaks, no big deal.
  
  Ubuntu Server baby. That shit is absolutely rock solid, I've literally never had an update break stuff in the decade+ I've been managing it.
- And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no more computers to set up and tinker
  -Alexander (probably)
- I am not able to comprehend what you mean. I love tinkering, ricing and starting all over again if something is permanently fucked. This is not a joke.
  I respect your approach, though , ofc.

A true mainstream Linux distro would need guidelines like this:
The user is never be expected to type a command into a terminal.
The user is never be expected to edit a configuration file.
There is a graphical UI for every possible action the user might want to (or have to) do.
This especially includes:
Configuring audio devices
Installing graphics drivers
Updating the operating system
Managing applications and storage space
Connecting to networked storage
Adjusting kernel parameters (This is neccessary on certain hardware, yet, barely any distro has a graphical UI for it.)
The only distro that comes close to this is Linux Mint, but not even Mint covers everything I just mentioned.
If we want Linux to succeed, there needs to be at least one distro that confidently ships without a terminal.
- There can never be a distro that ships without a terminal. I will burn it with the fire of a thousand suns. Even Windows has a terminal
- You were absolutely right about everything up until your very last sentence.
  We need a distro that comes with GUIs for everything indeed, but shipping without a terminal would be both a bad idea and would cause the distro maintainer to go up in flames immediately.
  
  Interesting, i kinda read that quickly and took awsay from it more of a
  Ships without the expectation to need a terminal, not actually ship without one at all
- Windows doesn't even cover everything you just said. The number of times Windows 10 broke my Bluetooth devices and I had to much around in registry to remove the device profile just to try to repair the device, is part of the reason I switched to Linux in the first place.
  Yes, many distros need a little refining and smoothing for the general public, but only because people are so used to dealing with bullshit troubleshooting on Windows that they don't see it as bullshit anymore.
  
  That’s a low bar, but importantly they’re still correct that technically Windows looks like it can handle those things as far as a regular consumer can see. Windows is unholy trash, but it at least doesn’t tell people who can’t even navigate their basic file explorer that they are expected to use scary terminal commands they likely found on a forum or third-party website.
  Personally I think a little more tinkering spirit would do the whole world good, not just with computers, but reality is the way that it is for the moment(things can change, fingers crossed).
- The reason I had no problem whatsoever editing config files is because I'd been doing it for decades already in Windows with .ini files.
  And not needing a terminal is different than not having access to one. Windows has a terminal.
  
  I think it even ships with 3(?) terminals for some reason now for some reason lol
- Seriously - Linux needs a standardized config schema spec. Something that programs should provide which an application can read and provide a frontend interface for the users to adjust config files.
  Could be something like:
  
  schema_version: 1.0 application: name: Poo Analyzer icon_path: /etc/pooanalyzer/images/icon.png description: Analyzes photos of poo schema: - config_file: path: /etc/pooanalyzer/conf/poo.conf conf_type: ini configs: - field: poo_directory type: dir_path name: Poo Image Directory description: Directory of Poo Images icon_path: /etc/pooanalyzer/images/poo.png - field: poo_type type: list name: Poo Types description: Types of Poo to Analyze values: - dog - cat - human - brown bear icon_path: /etc/pooanalyzer/images/animal.png ...
  Any distro could then create any frontend they'd like to manage this - the user could even install their own.
  
  This particular program would work great in combination with old school German/Dutch toilets with the poop shelf, take a pic after the deed and let the program tell you how you need to adjust your diet.
  
  I agree and disagree.
  The premise is solid: unify config so it's standardized and machine parse-able for better integrations like an easier-to-build UI/UX. It could even have ramifications for cloud-init and older IaC tech like Puppet.
  The problem is Linux itself. Or rather, the subsystems that are cobbled together to make Linux a viable OS. You're not going to get all the different projects to pivot to a common config scheme, so this YAML standard would need a backend to convert to/from whatever each little deamon and driver requires. This creates a few secondary problems like community backlash (see systemd), and having multiple places where config data must be actively synchronized.
  I think the current crop of GUI config systems are aleady well down the most pragmatic path: each config panel touches one or more standard config files, wherever they are, and however they are structured. It's not pretty under the hood, and it's complicated, but it works. These tools just need a lot more polish on the frontend.
  
  Ever heard of xdg?
- Been using fedora on a laptop for a year with no command line intervention.
  I don't mind the command line, but it has been uneccesary.
- OpenSuse does all of this or almost all of this.
- Every KDE distro can do all of these except whatever adjusting kernel parameters means? I don't know how to do any of this in the command and I've been using Linux for 8 years.
- No pc OS available meets your requirements for this lol, not linux, windowns or crapple osx
  Sure would be nice if linux was the first available though.
- They don't need to take away the command line. Just to make it so a low skill user can get by without it. Even windows ships with PowerShell.
- The user is never be expected to type a command into a terminal.
  Nope! Absolutely not. This is where Windows 95 fucked us all over. Prior to 95, windows was an application executed from a DOS prompt. Users may not have known many commands, but they learned that commands could be given.
  Windows 95 tried to convince us that a GUI developer knew better than the user everything the user wanted to be able to do with that computer. It did make simple use easier, but the way it did it was by hiding the average user away from any simple ability to automate. It took away virtually all command line utilities that could be scripted to run themselves, and replaced them with GUI-driven applications that required the human's time and attention, repeatedly and monotonously sorting through graphical menus and prompts to achieve a task that the computer could easily be "trained" to do itself. It did it by dumbing down the user, reducing their expectations to the few idea the GUI allowed them to express.
  GUIs are Fisher-Price toys. They are the bright and shiny, but functionally crippled. There is no need for a distro that deliberately impairs the user in the way that you describe.
  
  What is your goal? Are you content with Linux being niche?
  If not, what group do you think this appeals to?
  The casual device user continues to ignore Windows desktops and use their phone let alone Linux at this point.
  The normie desktop user who just wants a internet browser and basic office software can easily be won over to Linux Mint. You advocating everything be CLI based will kill that.
  The casual desktop enthusiast & PC gamer will get irritated and impatient and go back to comfy Windows. They mostly just want their games to run smoothly and maybe look pretty. Maybe install an application that does something moderately technical for them with tweaks here and there.
  You already have the hardcore techy users. They don't need to be converted.
  In my opinion, Linux and its various distro's main goal ought to be to undermine for-profit OS. Not to turn everyone into computer techs. The latter is a pipe dream anyway.
  
  I understand where you're coming from, but this may simply be a difference in goals.
  If your goal is that people become more computer-literate, then yes, perhaps we should use the GUI less. People who are already Linux users aren't going to have that big of an issue using apt instead of a GUI software manager.
  If your goal is that more people use Linux, then you need to have GUI support. If anything else, it eases them in so that they're not drinking from the firehose all at once.
  My litmus test would be "could I feasibly teach my grandparents how to use this?" Which I think is true of Linux Mint (yes, you need terminal for good driver management, but it's not like my grandparents do that via Windows GUI)
  Also, I'm not really aware of any Linux distros that remove command line utilities - mostly, they just have the same thing in both GUI and commands
  
  indeed 30 years ago it might have made sense. But it's 2025 now users want the less pain in the neck usage of a os. if my whole family is to use a Linux environement thet moment they will see a consol they will run away.
- I've been a happy daily linux user for over 20 years. No need to wait for "linux to succeed" whatever that means. It has gotten better and more advanced every year since I first switched.
- I dont understand, why do we want Linux to go mainstream? Eveyone constantly says it yet nobody has an answer. In order to become mainstream it would need to be so dumbed down that people like me would stop using it.

I can understand people not wanting to learn a ton of CLIs, I cannot understand people refusing to use any at all. They have the distinct advantage that you can copy + paste stuff, whereas in Windows you sometimes have to follow like a dozen steps to do whatever you want to do in a 2000s GUI.
- I got blocked by someone here for the same idea that I thought was balanced: it is a useful tool, it makes it easy to share how to do something.
  That's it. Use it if you want, or don't, but it's not a negative thing. And I too don't advocating sitting up at night reading man pages or anything..
- Dude, in a previous job I had a superior aggressively refuse to let me teach him how to do some extremely basic things on his computer (he'd just call me over to do it whenever he needed it done) and told me he did not know what an internet browser was (he used one everyday).
  Now, I did not understand his thought process, but he exists. There are 100% people who understand the basics but experience intense cognitive stress at the mere sight of a command line.
- I've used PowerShell in Windows for the past 15 years. Following dozens of steps in a GUI is not required.
  I also use Linux, with bash and Python for automation. I've also grown to love NixOS for its automation options.
  Both operating systems feature rich automation options. Both have ClickOps oriented interfaces for those that want it or are unwilling to learn to automate / use a CLI.
  Doing ClickOps is a choice and a mindset, not a requirement of Windows. Using a CLI in Linux is not a requirement depending on the distro or your use case.
- I couldn’t see anyone in my family using a CLI, they’d either be scared of it or get annoyed that they have to remember things. They’d quite happily spend all day clicking around a GUI to avoid 5 seconds of scary terminal words.

What scares me is that I’ve tried to hook multiple “geekier” teenagers on Linux, and they aren’t interested. Even the math-y ones don’t know the difference between an operating system and a browser. My main computer is Arch with xmonad and it disturbs and confuses them.
We have a lost generation when it comes to computers. Lots of the little geeks that would have been playing around in the registry or learning powershell 15 years ago are so stuck in walled gardens that they don’t even know there’s a world outside of them.
- To be fair, Windows really hasn't pushed Powershell all that much. They haven't even fully ported over all of Command Prompt's commands. You have to prefix those with .\ (I think; it's been a while) in order to get them to run even though the error message that comes up if you don't include that will tell you, "Hey, there's a command named this. Prefix it with that to use it."
  Now, instead of simply porting everything over, they have one app (named Terminal) running both programs.

My dad who retires today and who has been a Windows user since roughly 1993 has set up multiple Pi-Holes and OpenVPN in the last few years and recently even installed Ubuntu in WSL so he can run bash scripts locally too. He's not in a tech job, he's a doctor.
A year ago my friend who has been using Windows for his gaming for the last 22 years asked my to help him set up a Fedora dual boot. Just to play around with, even though he doesn't have a tech background. He didn't really use it much. But today his work had him blocked by their own fuck-up and he decided to use the time to try it out again.
This evening he told me about how he upgraded his Fedora back to a current version using GUI tools. Then he saw that Windows wasn't the default boot in his grub boot order anymore. He tried to find an app for editing grub, realised this was the kind of thing people do with CLI. So in the next two hours he learned enough CLI using a free beginners lesson he found online somewhere, until he found the history command, where he found the grub command we used during the original setup. He was so excited about this success!
I think the CLI criticisms are way overblown, and non-programmers can use CLIs perfectly well if they want to.
- I think the CLI criticisms are way overblown, and non-programmers can use CLIs perfectly well if they want to.
  it's not even criticism, it's just people being lazy and not wanting to learn things, which is fine, be lazy all you want. But at least be honest with yourself about it.
- I think people have trama from Windows CMD and DOS
  It is much nicer these days
  
  I think a good portion of the people complaining have never touched DOS, maybe CMD once or twice with a tutorial online (which sounds a whole lot like some stackexchange user teaching me about bluez, but this is scarier because they were told linux hard.)
  
  I was thinking that a lot of them are too young to even know what those are... My thought was that they've been raised on GUI for everything, without being able to tinker even if they wanted to, that the entire concept of CLI is alien to them.

Unfortunately I use Windows at work and I constantly use the CLI. I probably use the CLI more on Linux, but I'm generally doing really awesome stuff on Linux and really dumb stuff on Windows.
If you're just a regular chud consumer, then maybe you don't need it on either OS.

If you see having to use the terminal as a failure of the operating system then you shouldn't use Linux
You don't have to live in the terminal, but the amount of people who treat the terminal like it's lava is too damn high.
- This is the kind of mindset that prevents mass adoption of Linux. Sure the terminal should be available but there still should be distros catering to less tech-savvy people if we want the year of the Linux desktop to arrive at all. Some governments are looking to replace Windows with Linux, and you cannot expect the average desk worker to know or even care about doing stuff in a terminal.
  
  You don't need to do everything on the terminal -- even today, you don't have to. But you should not fear the terminal, the same way you should not fear a piano because you play a violin. Windows also has a terminal, there's stuff that tells you to go there to enable some Powershel things, and no one complains.
  
  Year of the Linux desktop but it’s chrome os? :-)
- That just isn't how novice users interact with a computer, though. Most mainstream OSes have GUI for anything you'd need to do as a novice.
  
  Everything but ffmpeg. ffmpeg was what made me accept (with silent contempt) the Terninal on Windows, fish made me love it on linux
  
  Touching virtual buttons on a multitouch screen wasn't how novice users interacted with a computer until it was.
  To me this feels like recommending Android to someone and then people on social media saying that I'm elitist for expecting someone to use a computer with only a touchscreen when everyone knows that you interact with computers with a mouse and keyboard.
  I'm not speaking hypothetically, this was the exact argument people were using when smartphones were still nerd toys and not a standard part of human experience. "Nobody will ever use them", "they're too confusing", "typing on a screen is too clunky at least my flip phone has buttons".
  People can learn. As soon as the iPhone came out suddenly everyone was capable of using a touchscreen interface and learning a new OS.
  Linux isn't for everyone. But if you're going to choose make the leap to Linux, you will be using the terminal occasionally. You don't have to be a terminal-only user, most people use a GUI for daily tasks.
  As long as you're okay learning how to do some basic terminal tasks you'll be fine. But if you come into with the mindset that the terminal shouldn't be needed and get upset at people for telling you otherwise, you're going to have a bad time.
  
  Most mainstream OSes have GUI for anything you'd need to do as a novice.
  And how is Linux any different?
  I've literally had a non-technical person who used Linux for less than a week fix an issue through the xfce gui while I was googling a solution.
  You just need to choose a correct distro and DE for the job.
- some linux users dream of having their grandma run linux so they never have to look at windows or macos ever again
- I am very proficient with the terminal. But there are many use cases when I want a OS that does not need the terminal at all. For instances media dedicated pcs.
  I have a pc that I only use from the couch, for playing games a viewing media, and using the terminal from my remote size keyboard is a bore, I would prefer a 100% gui solution for that usage.
  
  For gaming and media consumption, you can run Steam Big Picture Mode or Plex/Jellyfin which are designed for controller use.
  But you're not doing system administration with a TV remote on any operating system. By having a system that you can fully control from the terminal, you can just ssh into it to fix any issues without wasting system resources on a GUI that you will rarely use.
- Nah, that's wrong.
- my friend, I want to impart something on you. I write this with the sincere hope it changes your mind.
  The average user of a computer does not want to even think about the operating system it uses.
  Most people, myself included, want to work on our computer, not work on our computer (which is why I use Mint). An operating system should be the software version of a motherboard -- an invisible plinth upon which all the other things you actually care about, sit. In a hardware context the things you care about are all the components plugged into the motherboard -- your GPU, CPU, RAM, storage devices, and so on. In a software context, this is email, web browsing, video games, and office software, the programs the average user actually gives a shit about. Notice: Nowhere in that list does it say getting up into the systems guts via terminal or command prompt or whatever flavor of blinking cursor you prefer. Most users just want their programs to run and to never think about the underlying system, and that is okay. Not everyone needs to be technical, and shouldn't have to be to use a computer and reap the full benefits of using one. I choose to be because I'm a fucking spaz, but that doesn't mean someone who doesn't want to be should instead be condemned to inferior offerings from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. If Linux were, indeed, the best -- as Microsoft seems determined to prove via Windows enshittification -- then it should be, ideally, just as easy for nontechnical people to pick up as Windows. If it isn't, that's a problem with Linux that is yet to be solved, not a problem with people.
  Fortunately, my experience using Mint for the past year has been largely exactly that. It's very close to that ideal, if not already there -- I've had a few very minor issues, but, nothing I was unable to fix via a quick internet search.
  I say all this in the hope you'll understand, if you want Linux to take off, it needs to be accessible to the average idiot. It must be, because I don't know if you've seen the news, but we are not cumulatively getting smarter.
  
  The average user of a computer does not want to even think about the operating system it uses.
  That is certainly true.
  Not everyone needs to be technical, and shouldn’t have to be to use a computer and reap the full benefits of using one. I choose to be because I’m a fucking spaz, but that doesn’t mean someone who doesn’t want to be should instead be condemned to inferior offerings from the likes of Microsoft and Apple. If Linux were, indeed, the best – as Microsoft seems determined to prove via Windows enshittification – then it should be, ideally, just as easy for nontechnical people to pick up as Windows. If it isn’t, that’s a problem with Linux that is yet to be solved, not a problem with people. [...] I say all this in the hope you’ll understand, if you want Linux to take off, it needs to be accessible to the average idiot.
  You seem to be misinterpreting what I am saying.
  I am not here as a Linux evangelical, trying to spread the ~~Source Code~~ Word of Linus. It's admirable that you want that, you should contribute to the many open source projects that are bringing that closer to reality.
  I'm here as a user of Linux trying to read Linux memes in c/linuxmemes and so I focus my attention on the present state of being a user in Linux, not some hypothetical reality that, though desirable, doesn't yet exist.
  In the current state of things, Linux is not for everyone. It is a good operating system, but not everyone has the time to use it. I will certainly tell people of the advantages that it has over Windows and, for those capable, I will recommend it.
  For the people that choose to use Linux today, the 1st of April in the Year of our Lord 2025: you will have to use the Terminal. It isn't optional. Nor, despite the griping of newbies, is it a difficult thing to learn and you should become comfortable with it if you want to be a successful user of Linux. Artificially limiting yourself to GUI applications is going to make the operating system seem less capable than it actually is and you will be frustrated by a much larger set of problems.
  Until that glorious day in The Future when the universal GUI DE comes out, learn to use the terminal.
- While I agree with you that reluctance to use the terminal for literally anything is way too high, regular users shouldn't have to. And some distros make that easy for them to never have to stick a toe into the terminal, and this is not a bad thing.
  
  I don't think it's a bad thing that there are some tasks that can be done in a GUI.
  I don't believe that any Linux DE is at the point where a regular user never needs to use the terminal. Knowing how to use the terminal is, currently, a required skill for using Linux.
  Now, don't take this to mean that I think someone's grandmother needs to be a terminal user. By "regular user" I mean "average person who has chosen to use Linux" and not "random person off the streets", that person should probably use Windows still because Linux isn't ready for everyone.
- normie users should not have to use the terminal
- I've gone back and forth on this topic over the years, but I've finally just come to the conclusion that the year of the Linux Desktop just...shouldn't come, and I hate when I see this argument that people shouldn't have to learn to use the terminal.
  The terminal is about as difficult to learn as a Word Processor or a Spreadsheet Application.
  Sure, it can get complicated sometimes, but most of the time you just become familiar with your daily habits in it and when something weird comes up that's what a search engine is for.
  A lot of the time when I hear "Computer users shouldn't have to learn how to use the terminal," what I hear is "Computer users shouldn't have to learn how to use the Computer."
  f you want to play basketball but don't want to pick up a ball or learn how to dribble, then you don't want to play basketball. Maybe you just like to watch basketball?
  But using a computer is not a spectator sport, you're typing and clicking and touching, etc. You're interacting with the computer, and thusly you have to speak it's language, at least a little, to get stuff done.
  Additionally, most Linux Distros these days have made things incredibly user friendly, just not as braindead easy as Windows or MacOS.
  Beginner friendly distros (Ubuntu, Mint) generally require you to open up a terminal to update your system and install/uninstall new software, and that's usually all you have to do. That is a couple commands to remember and one password.
  If most people can't manage that then, yeah, I'm sorry, Linux will never be for you, and distros shouldn't inherently have to create an autoupdate fix all errors back end for you just for the sake of getting every idiot under the sun using Linux.
  You don't want to learn how to use the terminal? Then you don't want to use Linux. You just hate Windows, and hating Windows does not mean you love Linux.
  Saucy rant over.
  
  But why not make Linux idiot proof? What would you lose from the existence of a distro that has an easy gui tool for everything an average computer user would ever do?
  The terminal wouldn’t go away or lose it’s functionality, if that’s how you prefer doing things but it would open up the benefits of Linux to a way bigger audience.
  Because knowing how to use a terminal is not the same as knowing how to use a computer. Windows doesn’t need you to use the cmd for anything most people would ever do. Neither does macOS, Android, iOS, even ChromeOS. Only Linux can’t get rid of that stigma and I just don’t get why.
  Why is it better to force users to run updates via the terminal than having a menu for that in the settings or the „AppStore“ (graphical package manager) or a „Update“ app?
  Why don’t you want Linux to become easy enough to use that my grandma could handle it?

those are the people not even liked by lifelong linux users. my grandparents used linux and never touched a terminal. before he was mentally gone my grandpa bet on horses online. Also every gui installer was made by someone not like this.
meanwhile windows you have no choice but to use terminal as well as customized installer image if you want to mitigate the built in spying and use an offline account

I believe Linux distros aimed at nontechnical users should strive to not need a user to ever use a terminal, but I also believe folks should be encouraged to try them anyways.

Giving the would-be linux newbs the benefit of the doubt, IF they have any terminal experience at all it is with CMD/PowerShell. I don't blame them one bit for wanting to banish all terminals into the shadow realms, they had a traumatic experience.
- CMD is downright awful, when Powershell came on the scene I weeped for joy at work

I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, but I still remember the fear of the terminal. The truth is that there is not much that you need to learn for daily use. Unless I'm working on an actual project (like configuring servers/networking) I don't spend much time in a CLI. Start with a beginner friendly distro (Linux Mint Debian Edition is my pick). You shouldn't need terminal at all for basic usage. Next, find some tutorials on basic Linux terminal usage and practice. The goal isn't to "learn every command" but to just familiarize yourself with how it works. Learn how to navigate your files and folders (ls, cp, mv, touch, etc). Learn how to edit text files (use nano). After that, anything you need to learn will be because you want to do something beyond basic use.
- gasp how dare you suggest nano over vim! /s
  
  I have nothing against Nano, but after just a few months of using Neovim for basically all my text editing needs, Nano is completely unusable to me.
  
  Uhh you mean the only correct text editor (vim) /s /lh

“I don’t want to learn/use the CLI” is equivalent to saying “I only want to use features that have a GUI”, which you can already do on any operating system (including Linux).
- No, it means not needing terminal to have a usable system or to fix it
  even Windows sometimes doesn't meet this
- What? No, it doesn't mean that.
  If you want audio, but will have to use CLI to fix the issue. You have a feature you want, but can't use because of CLI.
  Same with installing software or using advanced settings. If that is only accessible through CLI, it is a major flaw for any user.
  
  It's a major flaw for those who doesn't want to learn how to copy-paste to CLI and take the first few steps into the terminal. Which is a valid approach.

half of the time the people who swear by clis and attack people who prefer a gui can't tell me what a given command is without pressing the up arrow 50 times first
- Amateurs use the up arrow. The real pros use history | grep 'something I remember from the command statement' :)
  
  or fuck :)
  
  Ctrl+r surely
- Next time, tell them, they should install fish and starship
- Ctrl+r to reverse search or use atuin shell history.
  But no comment otherwise :P.
- I use fish, also I dont need to remember every CLI command just the ones I use

It's always going to feel like this even if you never need a terminal for one simple reason:
When you google "how to XX on linux," you're going to find a stackexchange page where someone else asked, and someone answered with a terminal command instead of "Ok what DE are you using? Ok, so you're gonna want to click these seventeen different menu options, and I don't remember them without looking at them myself." It's just always going to be easier to send someone a string of ~30char to type than to try and figure out their GUI without screensharing.
- Yep. Every Linux problem has the exact same solution: ctrl-c, ctrl-v.
  
  Tbf, of course it is better to understand what those commands do too, but it always starts there! (And maybe a youtube tutorial or two for cd, ls, pwd, history, etc.)

I have no idea what CLI is. I just use Mint and don't put much thought in.
- It's an abbreviation for Command Line Interface To Objects Residing In System. A lot of male programmers can't find it.
- I think it's the Linux equivalent of Windows Command Prompt.
  
  No, it's the general term, as opposed to GUI (graphical user interface). Linux Shell, Windows command prompt and Powershell are all CLI
  
  Oh, that thing. I have used that in the past, but it's been a while since I've needed to.
  
  Windows Command Prompt/Powershell is a CLI, Linux's is called Terminal
  Command Line Interface - an interface method to your computer using lines of text

- Have to ask, do you gdb everything you run ? You think of big sofwares like office or things like that. There are GUI tool who replace the command line better. I am thinking about the configure display GUI specifically. X config was a pain... We are better of with the GUI and drag and dropping screen to place them.
- We got to approach this nuanced though. Yes, a strong stance against all the enshittification (incl. dark patterns and all that) is absolutely necessary to preserve the good things most Linux distros have in common. For example once KDE e.V. and the Gnome Foundation have finished their work at the payment backend for Flatpak repos we absolutely need to bolster Flathub + a handful of others (to avoid centralization) so they become a default, and through that are able to enforce a strong "no bullshit" moderation as companies are trying to "capture the market". This will be an inevitable shitshow as Linux-based OS' become more popular.
  Meanwhile we have to admit that not providing comprehensible and well integrated GUIs for everything - and that includes stuff like Bootloader settings, Systemd Services Management, sysctl configuration etc. - is a shortcoming that should be remedied in the future. On rare occasions even average users will have to open these things, and it's way better if they do so through an environment they can understand and navigate. Anything else is just gatekeeping.
  Linux should be accessible to everyone - that includes normies as well as those who may not be mentally able to understand or memorize CLI. This fear of enshittification is understandable in our current landscape, but it absolutely doesn't help if it stifles development towards more user-friendliness. After all nobody argues to take away the CLI in any capacity, just to add another abstraction layer for those who either need or want it. Which, assumably, are most people.

Most of the people I've introduced to Linux don't even use the shell. Beginner-friendly Linux distros are perfectly usable without ever touching a terminal, just as most people use Windows without ever touching PowerShell (or worse, the Registry Editor).

There's an OS that doesn't require command line use to do anything slightly advanced? That hasn't been my experience.

I'm of the opinion that if you're a newbie to Linux and want to use a more GUI-centric distro, then be my guest, telling someone to jump straight into something like Arch when they're just ditching Windows for the first time is more likely to just turn them off Linux forever.
That said, as said newbie gets more comfortable with the terminal, Arch is there if they want more of a challenge, and even then with archinstall, the main difficult part is effectively nullified, although for more advanced, long-term users, fully manual installation is still there on the Arch ISO as an option, but I'd be more likely to point them to something like Debian or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed to start with as those are generally more beginner-friendly than A
- It's not either-or. You can install KDE on Arch with one button in the archinstall you mentioned, and it will be a GUI based distro, you can happily live moving your mouse around the coloured buttons if that's your fancy.
  
  The general point I'm trying at is just sending a newbie straight off the deep end instead of letting them in easy to start off with and letting them move on to greater challenges on their own when they feel like they're ready for it, is going to hurt the cause of presenting Linux as a viable Windows or Mac alternative, way more than it'll help it.
  Just pointing someone just ditching Windows or Mac for the first time with no terminal experience at all, straight to Arch, Gentoo, or even Slackware, is only going to fluster them and maybe even piss them off, which the last thing you want to do when introducing someone to a new platform, is alienate them in any way as opposed to welcoming them in, which pointing them straight to a more challenging distro instead of letting them on easy with a more beginner-friendly one and letting them move on to a more challenging one when they're ready for it, will definitely alienate potential new users.
  Think of introducing someone to a new OS platform for the first time, as if you're teaching someone how to draw for the first time, for example, ideally you'd pick fun and simple exercises to teach them the basics before going into the deeper intricacies of the subject matter at a later date if they continue to be interested in the subject matter, pointing a new Linux user to something like Debian or OpenSUSE, or even Mint so they can learn the basics of the OS platform before moving on to a more advanced distro like Arch or Slackware, is the IT equivalent of that.

I'll be honest, as a macos & Linux user, even macos, the (self proclaimed) Holy Grail of accessibility and user friendliness,required me to run a few commands to fix bugs (not in weird softwares, just stuff which stopped working through reboots in the OS itself).
You can't expect to use a computer without CLI, or what you get is windows (and even then, you might get around the CLI but you gonna need to do some cursed regedit at the first attempt of slight customization, or bug).
The only exception to this is phones, and for good reason; you hardly can do shit in phones anyway, and if it bugs all you can do is wait for the devs to fix it for you
- Almost all maintenance tasks and fixes on windows come back to the command line. So I have no idea why people keep bringing it up about Linux.
  
  Because Windows hides its (ugly ass) terminal in shame so the user never has to see its putrid face.
  Linux encourages terminal use, including it as one of the base starting icons in most distros.
  That's my guess, anyways.
- and if it bugs all you can do is wait for the devs to fix it for you.
  "Oop, sorry, we only promised 2 major updates! Your 2 year old device is abandoned now."
  --The mobile industry
  We need a decently-hardwared Linux phone so badly...
  
  Or maybe decent mobile producers. New Pixels get 7 years of updates, Fairphone 5 gets 10.

Counterpoint: why should the standard for "just works" mean no CLI? What if distro maintainers decide that their user's experience is improved by relegating some tasks to the shell?
- because taking away user choice and accessibility is never a good idea
- Because knowing terminal commands is neither accessible nor feasible for the average computer user. It might be more efficient, if you take the time to learn it but the average computer user doesn’t want to spend that extra time. They want everything to be accessible and to be easy.
  Linux should always have the choice to use the terminal. But if you want the day of the Linux desktop to actually arrive some day, you need at least a couple of distros that don’t require you to know what a package manager is.
  
  They want everything to be accessible and to be easy.
  CLI is both accessible and easy, intuitive even. The only problem is that it requires a fundamental knowledge basis, and some syntactic context. But that's all pretty minimal.
  I would argue a GUI is more confusing if it has any nested elements in it (like photoshop for example)
  
  neither accessible nor feasible for the average computer user.
  Absolute hogwash. Learning like five short words is absolutely not unfeasible for any literate person, if a user can't do that, you can be sure they aren't actually an average user, they can't do anything with gui either. And probably need help tying their shoes.
  A two years old child can learn 5 short words. A grown up can write them on a sticky note and plop them on a screen.
  
  knowing terminal commands is neither accessible nor feasible for the average computer user
  I don't think that's true. It's literally just asking your computer what to do, much easier to remember than memorizing which subpage of the control panel opens the right wizard to get what you want.

I'm on Mint, but I still use the terminal to update my flatpaks. I'm just freaky that way 😎
- Someday you'll try that over SSH once.
  Once.
  I have no idea why it is the way it is.

Grew up with ms-dos. Spent half my career in telnet and ssh consoles.
When I just want to play Balatro at the end of a long day fuck any system that requires more than click click to get me in.
That's why I'm switching to Linux when windows 10 is no longer supported because fuck win 11 and the amount of regedits it's gonna take to get that working.

It's open source, they can just make their own distro.
- And that attitude is why Linux is struggling to gain market cap imho.
  Yes they can, but maybe we need to embrace those who arent tech saavy?
  Saying if you dont like it, go do your own thing is not very welcoming.
  We should encourage people to create their own distribution, but maybe welcome people with open arms first, guide them to a flavour that works for them, and then encourage them to learn how to make it exactly what they want
  Edit: ~~Market capture~~ > market share
  
  Market cap? Which stock symbol is it? 😉
  
  Haha market cap, market share , they're still all about selling stuff so dont really apply./ Market share is normally measured in share of revenue in most industries.
  There are lots of webpages, tutorials, youtubes and stuff like that for these people already. I'm sure they can also pay companies like canonical for more dedicated support if that's what they need.
  If you want to welcome people, go ahead and do it, nothing stopping you. Create the webpage or forum or youtube channel, distribution, or write the book whatever is missing. Just make sure to moderate it to remove CLI based answers and block users like me.
  "I" exist and I'm sure I'm never going to be part of your "we". The current situation of linux home user base seems just fine to me without pandering to a load of windows users. I think you should work on your desired subculture and keep me out if it. Leave me out of it - i can stay over here under my bridge in linuxmemes wearing my new programming socks.
  For the home market maybe you can look at valve and steamdeck or something as an example of an acessible linux sub-culture. Valve doesn't maintain and support that for free though. It'd be interesting to know how many full time employees they have on steamdeck OS just for the one device (and maybe a few gaming perpherals) and one GUI. Then expand that to all esoteric hardware and all GUIs . . .
  I guess chromeOS and a few forks of that is another similar example - i think that's still linux kernel based - some limitations on hardware i think.
  What I'd actually like to see is B2B growth (for user ) - but I don't think linux will ever be bought by employers like mine - I know how the procurement department operates - and I can't see that changing. There are plenty of people who don't need my support trying business sales, redhat, canonical, suse etc and more power to them - but microsoft didn't get big in B2B by being usable, nor by nor having "no CLI", nor by having a supportive community to home users. They just packaged it in a way that ticked all the boxes for the corpo procurement types - though most B2B customers do need their own dedicated user support.
  
  Why, no really tell me why we need to embrace nontechnical Linux users? What exactly does Linux have to gain? Because afaik nontechnical users dont donate, don't contribute, and dont even appreciate the software or the work maintainers put into it (and they complain far more often). Theres always "x feature doesnt work" or "y app isn't compatible" and suddenly "Linux isn't ready yet".

"The new Windows Terminal is so slick! And PowerShell is soooo awesome! When will Linux get cool neat powerful stuff like this?"
"Uh... About three decades ago?"
(To be honest, PowerShell is neat. But it's also cross platform, so if I really want it on Linux I guess I can get it there too? I don't really need to, I'm in middle of rewriting some PowerShell stuff in Python)
- I actually love the cross platform PowerShell stuff for two reasons. One it's really nice to be able to have something that works on my windows environment and the Linux one, and 2 because PowerShell is enormously better than bash.

I learned the command line on Sun Solaris Unix in the 90s, after messing with DOS first. At work I have a terminal open all the time, though I'll use GUI versions of some things too.
I use mint btw.
- Same here. I always have a terminal open if i need it. I probably split my time 50/50 between GUI and CLI.
  not sure why people think it's one or the other when using linux
  I use debian, btw

Linux Mint vs Windows is already enough to learn for a day 1 linux user.

I think it's fine to have some less commonly used actions be only accessible through a terminal, even on more user-friendly distros. That is basically what Minecraft does, and yet no one's scared of that.
- Ah yes, the good old /time set 1000
- A sensible opinion on my porn app?
  
  yt-dlp?

I'm pretty comfortable on the command line, but I also won't hesitate to boot a live disk and # dd if=/dev/zero the main hard drive the moment my gui refuses to load.
- Yep, same. The main thing Linux has taught me over the years is to keep good, regular backups of everything important.
  I've lost way too much data already by fucking up grub somehow, or by accidentally letting windows overwrite the efi partition or some bullshit. I know how to recover from that now, but back in the day when I was doing dumb shit to my os pretty much every day, I didn't.
  That was all 100% my own fault btw
- The simple mans solution.

ITT: Nerds that want mass Linux adoption but don't want to deal with people who don't share their interests and opinions

When are you REQUIRED to use cli? The app store works well, many apps have installers, and will be perfect for average users.
Advanced users should already be familiar with CLI and just need to learn a little more.
- To be fair the absolute majority of online help posts involve the CLI. Want to change language on my Debian install? It's off to the CLI!
  
  But they come with instructions usually. Copy paste done.
- Bugfixing.
  
  Falls under advanced users or copy paste from forums with instructions.

A meme is a great way to avoid their fury; Lynx doesn't show images.

Well yea, Linux is about learning how the computer works; wheras windows wants to hide it
- No. This may be the case for some distros like Gentoo or Arch, but applying this to the whole ecosystem and expecting everyone to even be interested in computers (which they should not fucking have to be to use a user-friendly Linux) is what alienates people.
  
  Exactly. If Linux expects me to open a program before I can use it, that's already too complicated for most people. I want to just tell the computer what I want and have it so it for me. I don't want to know what a file is or what Firefox does, leave that nerd shit out of my OS.
- Linux is software.
  It doesn't contain this intrinsic meaning you refer to.
  
  Linux is FOSS, maybe check that up?

There's quite some hypocrisy in learning to use windows, its obscure registry and the shady softwares that will tune it while refusing to copy commands in a terminal.
- Yeah, but regedit is a GUI. So it's all cool and dandy.

What if... You trolled someone by installing Linux, but with a GUI that 100% mimics Windows? 🤔
Actually, fuck trolling. I want this. Gimme the OG Windows 95 GUI for KDE/Gnome.
- Apparently, many people want to make Linux look like Windows 95?
  
  @pinballwizard @Kolanaki why not just install tde? It may look like classic windows, but better
- ReactOS isn't Linux. It's an open source reimplementation of win32.

Honestly, the biggest problem I've experienced is that once your colleagues see the CLI on your screen, you are no longer eligible to hold opinions on computers, systems or solutions.
- ...wat? In what kind of shop are you working?
  
  ...in the sense that I'm the odd one out - everybody else just uses Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. So whenever I have an opinion about how things should be, they just roll their eyes and go "well, of course you would say that!"
- That sounds backwards to me lol
- Sounds like a win/win if they no longer come to you for troubleshooting

BTW, yast exists. I use it if I'm to lazy to research how stuff works.
- I just installed Tumbleweed on my laptop alongside my main install (arch btw) to try it out, but I haven't had a chance to mess with yast yet.
  
  Enjoy, but don't expect to fix stuff as I haven't experienced any issues yet.

I run 2 systems. One is HTPC with LM, the other is dual boot Windows / bazzite. I like LM and bazzite. I like it very much. But maaaaan, I had problems setting up.
LM was totally fine except for when I was trying to set up pihole, screwed some steps and tried to remove it by terminal. It somehow corrupted OS so every time I'd try to login it would crash and prompt to login again. So far it is running fine but I had issues with pihole again when I tried to update it to v6. This time it corrupted pihole itself but I have managed to restore and update it. I guess reason is that pihole doesn't support LM put of the box and requires some tinkering to install.
Bazzite, on the other hand, is totally fine now. I guess that was something related to a recent update. But before that it wouldn't load. Like screen would be black but terminal would be still accessible. I have figured out that it would crash loading gaming mode and stuck there (but I didn't tell it to boot to gaming mode) so I had to manually make it boot to desktop mode (kde) in terminal every time. If you think that I have screwed something up again - nope. Fresh install on a separate ssd. It installs and then would reuse to boot or boot after like half an hour into kde. All the rpm ostree -update or -upgrade did nothing.
I love these both systems but maaaaan if a basic user has to experience what I had, they'd stick to mac/windows for the rest of their life.

I struggled to install and use waterfox on a Linux the other day until I realized there was a usable executable in the folder.
Then I had to write the .desktop file myself and it doesn't have an icon I could find but it works great.

An at least superficial understanding of the cli is an essential part of using linux. If you don't ever want to use a cli, what are you doing pursuing linux? Do you just want a free version of windows? Go pirate windows.
- I pursue Linux because I want a FOSS OS and its privacy and security benefits, not because I want to tinker and learn the CLI.
  I mean, I do want to tinker and I have learned the CLI but it's not why I pursue Linux.
  
  I guess I should have written "If you want to never have to use a cli" instead of "If you don't ever want to use a cli", as I didn't mean you have to want to use a cli to use linux. I meant that one has to be OK with using a cli, accepting of the fact that they have to use a cli.

gatekeeping always helps with conversion rates, keep it up 👍
- Yes because we're not a religion, conversion rates as a measurement of Linux success is silly
  
  who said anything about success, that sounds needlessly defensive
  are you pretending that more people using linux wouldn't be beneficial for linux
- Yeah. Gatekeeping by selling your product for free. Guess how much an Apple/Microsoft engineer makes vs a Linux one. Lmao.
  
  the post is literally about gatekeeping what the fuck are you even taking about

I just installed garuda and update via their built in update command

I was today years old when I realized that "just works" has nothing to do with the interface kind. If it works, it works, that's it.

The command line allows people to help troubleshoot problems across Linux dostros without everyone's desktop having to look exactly the same.
Stop whining, you ninnies, it's a good thing!
- Ah, the classic "CLI commands are universal" nonsense. Isn't even true with poweruser distros (look at Alpine or Nix), but neither with common ones. But I'm sure reinstalling grub on a systemd-boot distro can't be that bad, right? Here, quickly install something to fix that. Oh, your distro doesn't apt but pacman/dnf/zypper/whatever? Too bad, don't know those. Wait, why is that config file missing? Oh, your distro saves it somewhere else, sure hope you didn't copy some script from the internet that now failed halfway through!
  Surely after copy-pasting all those commands the other person has learned something to help themselves next time, other than that they're utterly lost on Linux without the help of others. This will definitely make people use Linux instead of going back to the exploitative OS they know where they at least feel comfortable enough to know it won't fail on them.
  
  Lol. Navigating through menu-in-popup-in-window-in-tab-in-popup or adding/changing registry keys you understand nothing about is surely superior, right?
  
  I have fixed loads & loads of issues via cli. I don't even know what the hell you're on about. Sounds like a skill issue, tbh.
  
  I haven't seen anyone complain about that, complaining about freedom is a red-flag
  
  if you're using systemd, 90% of your system maintenance and boot handling is going to be running through systemd, so it's likely to be pretty syntactically similar.
  other than that they’re utterly lost on Linux without the help of others. This will definitely make people use Linux instead of going back to the exploitative OS they know where they at least feel comfortable enough to know it won’t fail on them.
  yknow, unless they do actual debug. Everytime i've seen someone go over an issue they have with linux, via someone else, it follow the process of debug, troubleshoot, solve. Where you must necessarily learn something. Maybe not as much as when you figure it out yourself, but group troubleshooting is often more efficient.
  Not to mention all of the resources and information out there to actually figure out what's happening is so much more accessible.

The year of linux will never come because a lot of people wanna boot up their pc and have it work. Just fire up a program and have work, without looking up workarounds and clis and other stuff.
I made the jump just this month but i can totally understand if someone doesnt wanna do this.
- There's a lot of work being poured into Flatpak, which is the way to go forward (most likely coupled with immutable file systems in the future). If this work is done as well as more people contributing to the big desktop environments as Linux becomes gradually more popular there's a good chance we'll see steady success.
  But even then this whole culture has to change, and people need to stop lying to themselves how "CLI commands are universal" and such stuff (there are way too many differences between distros). Anyone who, instead of pointing to the corresponding disk utility, by default starts to describe parted or /etc/fstab to people who didn't asked for the harder CLI way is actively alienating people. Not to mention who, in utter unhelpfulness, respond with "why would you want to do that" or "RTFM". As if that'll help anyone (also the manuals are utter garbage as they're almost always written using high-level terminology expecting knowledge no newcomer will understand).
  It's indeed "alles extrem belastend".
- It is really only a meme
- So what do those people do when their Windows machine doesn't just work and applications require a workaround?
  
  Get angry, frustrated and ask someone who knows. And because more people are using Windows, chances are, they will find the answer way quicker. Also, most programs already run on windows.
  Like when i wanted to set up my Proton Drive on Windows, i just downloaded it and started it.
  On Ubuntu, i had to write a systemd.service to get the program to autostart on starting my machine. Which was fun, but it isnt for a lot of people.
- This is how my linux workstation works, for decades.

literally just learn CLI, you're actively wasting time by not learning it. It's so hard to describe how utterly beneficial the CLI is to someone who hasn't used it.
- Why do people need to learn CLI to watch youtube and write emails? That's all the average computer user does.
  
  obviously you don't have to, i just recommend, aggressively perhaps, that anybody using linux, should learn the CLI, because it's highly advantageous.
- Stop being the person the meme is about
  
  im correct though.
  You should just learn CLI, if you're already using linux, clearly you desire more than the "it works" approach of windows or macos. Why not improve your life by learning how to better utilize it?
  This is like arguing that you shouldnt have to learn self finance because it's a choice. Sure, but it's an objectively stupid choice.

The CLI is a universal master control panel, of course you need to learn it. It'll help you out when you're in a bind. But it's one thing to not learn & another thing to hate on it. Learn the basics
Unlike windows, Linux terminals are fun.
- Fun is subjective. I do not consider the CLI fun. It's useful but not what I want to spend my time with.
  
  I said unlike Windows

Linux is meant for power users
Sure you can use it for just browsing the web but that's not its strong point
- linux enables powerusers, which also enables a foundation for everyday users, which enables a foundation for learning and education of those users.
  
  I never said that it couldn't be used by someone who isn't a power user. In reality I think anyone can be a power user on Linux as it is fairly accessible and easy to learn. You don't need to be some crazy wizard to use the command line.
- That's entirely untrue.
  That's like saying Windows is meant for Visual Studio developers. You could use other IDEs but that's not its strong point.
  
  Cars are meant for race drivers.
  Sure you can use them to just buy groceries but that's not their strong point. /s
- This is the kinda BS that scares away new users. You're objectively wrong, bud.
  
  Linux makes it fairly easy to be a power user even if you aren't super technical. Linux puts you in the drivers seat.
  In reality anyone can be a power user
- People will disagree and downvote but objectively you are correct. Who makes the software for linux? Who maintains distributions? Who contributes to OSS? Who donates to OSS software? Who maintains distro wikis? And when these people do it they make it with whom in mind? The answer is simple, its power users who make it primarily with power users in mind. Thats why Linux has more maintainers, more contributors, and more software engineers, than professional software/UX designers (call it a bad thing but thats what it is)