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Comment by shalmanese | Hacker News Reader

It's impossible to generalize across a broad range of use because each person's needs are different and non-negotiable. We've had plenty of examples of totally tech illiterate people using linux with zero problems since 1999 but they're totally irrelevant because they happen to be the people who are on the narrow set of rails that don't touch linux's rough edges.

To make a convincing case, you have to move beyond anecdote to actual statistical analysis and the numbers are still pretty overwhelming that many common things that many common people need to do can't be done without the CLI.

And even if you generate data that 60, 70, 80% of people would have no problems using linux, that's irrelevant in the case of a specific person who has a specific common need that linux falls over at.

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How about we also include how MS infiltrated the education system with hidden incentives and essentially forced training in a non-free user hostile operating system to multiple genrations of people?

I think people had to learn Windows. They can learn Linux. The excuses are bs. Schools should teach unix/linux, and not proprietary systems. We should expect people to learn new things to be able to operate new tools. Thats ok to expect. This idea that the computer is a dumb terminal is far too prevelant thanks to phone and tablet proliferation, another tech corrupted at the outset to be user-hostile and spy on them.

Desktop linix and laptop linux are 99% of the way there. Yes, you will have to learn new commands and ways of doing things. Yes, some software you are used to won't work (wine be praised).

It's worth all the trouble though. Freedom isn't free, you have to actively persue it.

I look around and see way too much Stockholm Syndrome going on.

It's all software really. Most people would be fine without Adobe or Microsoft Office or Google Docs. We don't need to train kids with GitHub, Sibelius or Dorico, the list goes on. Concepts don't require application-specific training and the FOSS options are largely good enough if not better than the proprietary competitors.

And would be even better and improve faster with more users.

> How about we also include how MS infiltrated the education system with hidden incentives and essentially forced training in a non-free user hostile operating system to multiple genrations of people?

When was the last time you used Windows? Microsoft employees a small army of user experience designers to ensure it’s a great experience. It’s not perfect, but I can do everything I need to do using the GUI.

This isn’t a case of learning how to do the same thing differently. The GUI is objectively better for most consumer use cases. Linux, for better and worse, relies more heavily on CLI.

Holistic "experience" to me includes privacy protections. Windows spies on the user at every turn. GUI elements are not hard to get right. Launchers make it all even easier.

That's fair. For those who value privacy over ease of use, Linux is the way to go. I'm just not sure that group is very large. I don't, for example.

Can you name one thing that a NOOB-friendly Linux requires the command line for that a technically illiterate user can accomplish in MacOS / Windows?

Changing mouse acceleration settings is one I ran into, there was no option in the UI at all and google searches brought up config file edits that went completely over my head. I think it was on either Pop or Fedora KDE.

In windows it will come up by typing 'mouse' into start.

At least on my Arch KDE setup it's System Settings -> Input Devices -> Mouse and I've got an Acceleration Profile option between Flat or Adaptive. I can also just open up the settings and search for "acceleration" to get there. I can also just pop open the "start menu" (or whatever you choose to call it for KDE) and type "acceleration" and the first option is "Mouse"

I'm not sure if Windows has finer grained control in the GUI or not, but TBH I've also never ran into anyone but a techie (and very few of them) who had mouse acceleration set to anything non-standard.

Sadly this isn’t so easy on Ubuntu. And it’s not like we can tell everyone to “just use Arch,” because Arch has its own tough edges.

Oh yeah, Arch isn't for the faint of heart, but this should work on any distro running KDE. A quick check tells me Ubuntu is running Gnome 3 by default where you need Gnome Tweak Tool to access the same setting. That sucks, I agree, and I hate that Gnome is trying to go the direction of mobile by locking things down and removing configuration, but considering the OSX doesn't expose this setting at all and you need either the terminal or a 3rd party app to modify it, I also don't think that not having this setting readily available disqualifies Linux from being usable without the terminal, unless we're going to claim the same is true of Macs.

This does not require CLI. https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/mouse-sensiti...

GNOME tweak tool has even more options, also from a GUI: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tweaks

That adjusts speed, not acceleration. Tweak Tool is indeed what’s needed, but it’s not apparent to a newbie. I spent hours finding that particular app when I first used Ubuntu. It’s absurd that that kind of functionality isn’t built in.

I thought that was a acceleration.

Perhaps they'd not know of gnome tweaks, though they could remember Power Tools from Windows....

Mouse speed is how far the cursor moves for some distance of physical mouse movement. Mouse acceleration additionally makes the cursor's speed increase when the mouse's acceleration (change of speed over time) is faster.

Mouse acceleration is annoying (bordering on infuriating, imo) because it changes cursor movement from an easy 1:1 mapping of mouse movement->cursor movement by adding an additional dimension. You then not only have to keep in mind how far you're moving your mouse, but also how quickly you're moving it. I can't fathom why UI designers seem to think that it's so great that it should be present with no ability to disable it.

And there is literally no way to do it on Mac. Or, you know, disable scroll acceleration, an abomination that needs to die.

This is quite typical of the kinds of things you need to “dip into the CLI” for Linux that people complain about.

Things that other OS’es usually don’t even allow.

Edit: Another issue with Linux configs is that since nearly every setting can be changed through the CLI, and it’s usually a single liner at that, most online resources tend to provide the single liner that one can use to copy/paste into the CLI to achieve what they want, because the alternative is providing like 10 screenshots for 15 steps for someone to try and painstakingly replicate with their mouse or trackpad.

The most common example of this is that pretty much every application will give its installation instructions as:

sudo apt install thunderbird (On gnome).

When you can just as well go to the software center, search thunderbird, and hit install. Or go to thunderbird.com, download the package and double click/install.

However, the CLI method is clearly far superior and easier, yet it leads to complaints about having to “dip into the CLI”.

As mentioned in a parent thread, compare the installation instructions between Windows/OSX/Linux for Radarr: https://wiki.servarr.com/radarr/installation

Radarr needs functionality that is more specialized than most apps so there's special instructions and edge cases on all three platforms. But the Linux version is significantly more complicated because Linux doesn't provide as many out of the box tools for installation that works across all distributions like Windows or Mac.

I mean I'd just use containers (e.g. Docker) for it with a reverse proxy (also container). But I also don't think this is software which you're supposed to run on a System 76 laptop. You're supposed to run it on a 24/7 machine, a server. Could be a Raspberry Pi (if you can get hold of one :P).

Solving problems. Like, the happy path may have a UI, but if that doesn't work, or isn't quite right, any troubleshooting most likely will not have a UI.

Installing NVIDIA drivers?

Why would you be installing NVidia drivers in a machine that has come with Linux preloaded and graphics drivers already installed?

Oh, you’re doing an Apple to Oranges comparison between Linux manually installed on a machine vs Mac or Windows coming preloaded on the machine?

Because if you did an apples to apples comparison, any decent computer with Linux preinstalled will come with all the drivers installed as well. And when it comes to manually installing, installing drivers for Windows can also be a pain, and don’t even get started on trying to install Mac on a machine it didn’t come preinstalled on. Hackintoshes are hard to make work even for experts.

Last time I ran Ubuntu, (which has admittedly been years) it'd start with the open source drivers by default and prompt you with an to install the proprietary drivers. Doing so was two clicks.

Is this no longer true?

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