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The future of Linux
(lemmy.sdf.org)
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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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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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For Linux desktop to grow past the single digit market share it is at today. It needs to be led by tech visionaries not by code evangelists . The average user doesn't care about if it's running Wayland or x11 or whatever shit you name it they only care about their OS having all the features they need and support all the latest hardware they buy.
Add to that any average Joe would freeze at the prospect of having to enter a command line to maintain their computer or use their firewall. In short for Linux to grow it needs to copy windows or macOS otherwise it will keep being used by nerds and sys admins
In a very real sense I do think that the command line is ever so slightly too maligned as a beginner friendly tool. I definitely agree that it’s intimidating for people and that it’s easy to mistype a command or whatever… but good god is it ever nice to be able to tell somebody to “just copy and run this command” instead of guiding them through a GUI. Of course that has its own problems (ideally you don’t run commands you don’t understand), but it can be a really nice way to quickly help somebody. Macs strike a good balance with this in my opinion. There are GUI options for more or less everything (that seem to be front ends for command line tools), but also command line versions available, giving you the best of both worlds.
The problem with the command line line. Is that people don't understand what they are typing . what command means what. And don't really care to memorize them. I've seen tech illiterate people navigate their way through leading how a mobile OS works because of how user centric they are designed. If you give them a Linux distro with a bunch of command lines to type. They would rather call someone more knowledgeable to do it or give up on it entirely. Unfortunately this is something Linux Devs don't understand
Clicking buttons doesn't mean you understand what they do. And often time they don't do what you would think they do. CLI on the other hand is actually much more direct, because the entered command does the same thing on almost any machine and you can read about what it does with "man command".
GUI have context and user feedback
Command line has :0: error: Undefined temporary symbol :0: error: Undefined temporary symbol
What? Is this sarcasm? CLI offers much more debug potential than GUIs.
For someone who knows what they're doing maybe, but this is about those who don't, which is 99% of people.
So what are you doing when a GUI tells you "error"? You give up and do something else?
A GUI tells you a lot more about the current status and what you can do, in an intuitive way, than the cli ever can
This is no argument, this is simple opinion without any base. How does a "next/proceed/ok" button tell you anything? Also windows is hilariously known for its horrendous error messages. Stop trolling please.