Quick everyone, prevent a warning text or something

I just have never had a Linux system that didn't require some sort of terminal work to fix the occasional bug. A couple of updates ago Fedora left me with conflicting packages that needed the terminal to straighten out.

Here's the thing that a lot of long-term linux users don't seem to understand: If it involves typing out a command in a terminal, or editing a configuration text file, 99% of casual users are already out. It doesn't matter if they just copy-paste a command or have change a single number in a text file, they literally don't even want to try, they consider that "too complicated".

If you are using Linux you should learn terminal basics. The terminal is a very powerful tool that can be useful if you learn it. That doesn't mean you need to use it all the time but it is nice to have in some cases.

Especially since the manpages are not written to always be comprehensible for end-users, but for developers and professionals. Some tools like tldr can help, however they rarely come preinstalled and aren't getting the attention they deserve.

So you ever tried support with windows? Go to some crappy community site with people who barely know what they are talking about and try some powershell and regedit crap.

Or go read conflicting Microsoft documentation that always seems to make man files look easy.

Its computers. You read stuff to deal with stuff, the OS is irrelevant.

My gripe is "oh, you picked the wrong distro"

I just want my printer to work ffs

I've been hearing about Linux elitists for the last 20 years, and I have yet to meet one.

Post/browse a help forum, it doesn't take long to find them

Those dudes are lost in the sauce. Nobody should be using big endian these days

Wow. Just wow. What a bunch of utter darlings. Just let them stew in their own idiocy.

Edit: To clarify, I mean the people who wrote this readme.

LOL yes, I had a look at those too when I was looking for a more minimal terminal. Noped the fuck out when I read you had to recompile the tools to configure them.

It's not that this is beyond my skill level, but that is just so ... why would I want to do that?

Acting like this is some impossible task is a bit of a stretch. It's 2 commands.

You need to edit a C header file used as a config file, and run make and use the resulting executable file. That hardly keeps out anyone.

At the same time DWM is very convenient, and so was WMII.

Documentation has gotten worse too. Veronica Explains discussed this issue in one of their videos. If you look at some good examples of documentation like the Commodore 64 manual, it explains concepts to an audience unfamiliar with computers in a way that’s easy to understand. Lots of modern software doesn’t have docs like this anymore. Then, on top of that, you have the condescending users in help forums.

The biggest barrier to widespread adoption is the portion of the toxic parts of the general community.

You should be careful with that. Because what exactly are those toxic parts, when deciding upon strategy of fighting against them, might be understood differently.

That's why most elitists on Linux spaces don't know WTF they are talking about, but the elitists who deed have been pressed out earlier.

Also I really don't see any problem with pointing someone to a place in a well-written manual. After answering a few simple questions, of course, and seeing that they don't understand hints that all this is documented specifically to avoid annoying other people.

Absolutely agreed, I find it extremely telling that most people who say that have never personally contributed nor donated. Its ok to have expectations but its not ok to make demands from volunteers, thats why so many devs get burnt out and leave.

The thing is, simple can mean two things, and they are quite often at odds with each other.

It can mean simple to understand, or simple to use.

For example, a piece of software that's just a binary, a config file and a man page describing the config file and the software's behavior is generally quite easy to understand. Like, you can fit the idea of the program entirely into your mind and "comprehend" it, though it may not be easy to use for a novice.

By contrast, a piece of software that contains additional layers for easy of use, like a GUI to edit options, may be simple to use, but not necessarily simple to understand. The additional layers add more complexity that does not contribute to core functionality of the program, it can become unclear what gets changed where when you click on buttons, the config file is likely not documented, human readable or editable, or it may even be a completely opaque configuration database (the registry), ... So making the software more simple to use, often makes it harder to comprehend.

I, and I think many other nerds, like software that is simple in the "comprehensible" sense, we want to be able to wrap our head around it completely and we don't mind putting in a little bit of effort to achieve that comprehension, whereas other people prefer to hit the ground running.

Ive seen a lot of anti-gui sentiment but nothing I can remember enough to link to

They are literally in this thread here.

Git gud n00b!

/s, of course.

I've come across this kind of response a few times on here and elsewhere, but I think it's nowhere near as prevalent as it's sometimes made out to be.

The Arch Wiki is so nice

It's a sadly entrenched part of the culture. Literally 30 years ago the joke was "if you ask a question in a linux forum you get a bunch of shitheads screaming rtfm. But phrase it as a complaint about linux not doing something windows can, and they will fall over themselves with detailed instructions to prove you wrong"

I understand these people lack power elsewhere in their lives and want to be powerful where they believe themselves to be experts, but it’s a real pity they express it with a complete lack of empathy.

You seem bitter.

There are two kinds of Linux elitists - 1) those who know nothing, but have recently discovered Unices and think they are all-powerful and there's the right way to go and simple solutions and everything is clear, and the future is bright, 2) those who are tired to rephrase the manuals and want newcomers to sometimes think why they don't expect Russinovitch-level knowledge of Windows internals from other normal usual Windows users, but with Linux every stupid thing they want to do should be baby-fed to them down to that deep level.

I really hate the first kind, it's the type who think making yet another "nice wallpapers" Ubuntu-based distribution makes them cooler than me, or that Wayland is already good enough for everything and my arguments that there's no FVWM under Wayland should be disproved by myself doing my own google search, and so on.

The second kind is normal for every area of human existence. You don't have to know everything, but also nobody owes you accepting you as equal to those who do, or your opinion, and nobody owes you the benefits of knowledge, and nobody owes you making things work the exact way you want.

TLDR - community members are as valuable as their contributions. If someone's contribution is reposting Nixie Pixel videos (or whatever is their alternative now), then no matter how "not elitist and nice" they are, they are not very useful compared to those with knowledge. But if someone's being elitist without any knowledge (as is typical among Arch Linux users), then maybe they are even less valuable.

Maybe I've been using KDE too much, but what's unintuitive about it?

Wait what's wrong with KDE? I'd think a windows user would be more comfortable in KDE than GNOME any day.

just introduce new users to GNOME, that’s perfectly intuitive and even looks great!

Gnome 2 sure, modern not so much. I mean when useful features are cut from the GUI it just means it's harder to actually do things. Like removing "open in terminal" made non-GUI stuff more difficult (esp. w/complicated directory).

I'd say XFCE or Cinnamon or anything else like those are better.

are you trying to say that there are Linux enthusiasts that protest GUIs being made simple and intuitive, and that if they succeed, would-be Linux users will go back to Windows, which is more intuitive?

Not just GUI, but that's a prime example. A good one would also be the whole debate about warning measures in apt so it doesn't just happily remove essential system components like xorg. That debate came up after LinusTechTips' video where Pop!_OS became unusable as he tried to install Steam. Good example as countless people blamed him for "executing commands he didn't understand", he as well as System76 were flooded with hate for "making Linux look bad". Which, well, in that case it absolutely was as there were no safeguards or structures preventing either a wrongly configured package to be published in the repo, nor for the user to not remove essential parts of your system with a command that isn't specifically about them (sudo apt install steam). Anyone who's arguing that more of the Linux software stack should aim to be more stable and accessible usually gets hated on, and people who're new to Linux but also say they don't want to get into PCs but just use it and for it to work are getting alienated and in some cases outright attacked.

Windows obviously isn't really more intuitive compared to a fully working Gnome or KDE environment except for people who already know it for decades. That's not what it's about in this case though, but people who expect literally everyone to spend weeks and months learning about concepts, commands and structures in their computer that by now is second nature to them but not interesting to many others. It's xkcd 2501 in a nutshell, but with toxicity sprinkled on top. Common users mostly have to stay in certain corners like the Linux Mint forums to consistently have a good time, and it really sucks.

I found gnome so unintuitive that i ended up switching to a different shell to uninstall it because I couldnt figure out how to close that app selection menu thing. (Though maybe I'm just bad at figuring out UX flows that are intuitive for most, seeing how I also despaired as my prof handed me his macbook for my thesis presentation and I didn't manage to open the file, though tbf there I couldn't even try to google it and was already nervous)

I'm sure it's not hard once you know but any UX flow that isn't already familiar can cause issues like that. Which is why KDE will feel much more friendly to the average windows user since it works the same way for the most part.

It's hard making things simple, it requires research with focus groups, constant testing, firm guidelines based on the results.

They've done a lot of that in the middle 90s to middle 00s, when after things moving fast most GUIs were so atrocious it was just necessary. Thus classic Windows versions and classic MacOS (till 9) and Amiga Workbench and even Windows XP are very usable. Even OpenLook and Motif are not so bad.

Today we have a lot of network effects and inability to just drop something we hate to use, thus the market incentive for a similar widespread optimization of GUIs doesn't form.

So - both KDE and Gnome today are horrible, but Gnome folks are at least trying very hard. I generally like KDE more, but their ergonomics were always overloading me as an ASD person to the degree of being exhausted by 15 minutes of using it.

Gnome is less overloading, but - use of titlebars to show custom controls for every application is good for wow-effect, but bad when you want to expect only one function from titlebar in every application. And the paradigm of Windows taskbar or Motif icons or something else for hidden windows being indicated and immediately accessible is good. If they don't like taskbars, they could add something like iconbox in TWM or old FVWM or such. And a more Spartan (like usual) application menu.

TLDR, between imitating Apple/touchscreen UIs and ergonomics Gnomers have to make a compromise, or pick one lane. Right now it's quite irritating when in some place they pick the latter and in some the former.

Honestly most modern Linux software is fine.

I personally like gnome but I think the key with gnome is you need to learn the workflow. If it works for a user it feels very natural and clean but if you want something that's close to Windows or Mac gnome isn't it.

I don't think that there is any one issue that hurts the Linux desktop, I think it is more a matter of death by a thousand cuts.

I think for the Linux desktop to be (more) successful we need dedicated QA teams, with a direct connection to usability developers that constantly test and write automated tests for the whole integration on different hardware, and fix any issue as well.

Yes, except I needed to modify some kernel parameters to fix display artifacts a few months ago due to an upstream bug. Wasn't a big deal for me but the user who uses the system, even the concept of editing some parameters is beyond their comprehension.

Yeah, I think the biggest obstacle to wider adoption of Linux is the lack of availability of devices that come with it installed. As long as you can't buy a Linux PC at Best Buy & co, it will always be somewhat niche. Pretty much anyone can use Linux these days but installing it is just too much of a hassle for the average user.

Absolutely this, im all in favor of making Linux more accessible but we dont need to become a Windows clone

Yeah they probably mean easy. And probably easy for me, or what I already know.

That said, one of the complaints I commonly hear about Gnome is that it's simplified to the point of being hard to use. So again, simplification is probably not what they mean.

If you don't like a particular piece of software move on to something else. It is entirely up to the dev since it is ultimately there project. They owe nothing to you and demanding things does nothing but annoy everyone.

Example? Why are there always people who can find these unicorns and I never seem to run into them.

Or are you being extreme in calling gatekeeping because they feel they don't need the GUI, because it just works? Someone argued with me about how a GUI is necessary for everything and frankly it is the slowest way to convey information and the least accurate.

But if YOU want a GUI, welcome to open source, and feel free to implement it.

Point is, I don't think people are trying to gatekeep, or hold onto their niche, it just doesn't make sense or scratch their own itch.