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this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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You want Windows or Mac.
If you want a computer that you can do stuff like web-browsing, document/spreadsheet/pdf/slideshow editing/creation, gaming, or multimedia processing on, there are distros and utilities on Linux that make those more-or-less easy and beginner-friendly,
BUT it requires divesting oneself of the habits, behaviors, and paradigms of other operating systems and being willing to learn anew. Community-based Libre software is developed in an entirely different way for an entirely different purpose; because of that, it is nearly impossible to recreate the same software as for-profit proprietary software. One is made by a community hacking together a functional system that suits their needs, the other is made to generate revenue, and thus has to keep users dependent on it by trapping them in dark patterns and igorance of its workings.
If you just want "Mac or Windows, but free as in beer," suck it up, pay the devil his due, and buy one of those OSes. Libre Software is an entirely different paradigm, and thus requires a whole paradigm shift before anyone will be happy with it; on-boarding people who aren't ready to divest themselves of the old paradigm just leads to disgruntled users who blame you for anything wrong with their PC, and creates a market void in the FOSS community ready to be filled by corpo proprietary slopware.
Mint or Fedora require no more command line than Windows does.
I daily drive Debian and it doesn't require CLI for anything other than troubleshooting the problems I caused myself. There has been one time in 5+ years where it booted to console because the maintainers made changes to the kernel that fucked up the legacy nvidia drivers, and it had a workaround of booting to a previous kernel until they fixed it within the week. For newbies that might be scary the first time it happens, but its an easy fix that still didn't require the CLI.
But nowhere did I say Linux required the terminal, I was addressing a different part of OP's question. I guess since it's such a prevalent myth, not denying it is tantamount to implicit agreement, so here's me denying it.