The GUI applications are just terminal applications where you press buttons instead of typing. Creating the buttons and UI is extra overhead for developers.
CLI folks have invested the time to use terminals effectively and view overuse of the P&CI as beneath them, and P&CI folks have no interest in dumping time into learning CLI to do something they could do on Windows with P&CI.
There are people who have learned to use Linux, using whatever tools are best for the job and people who have decided that the only way to interact with a computer is with a mouse and refuse to learn anything else.
You don’t have to swap away from Windows. But, if you choose to, know that you will have to learn a new operating system and, on Linux, this means becoming familiar with the terminal.
If you’re going to artificially limit yourself, despite the chorus of Linux users telling you otherwise, by deciding that any terminal use indicates a failure of the OS or of developers, then you should not use Linux.
It’s hard enough to learn a new OS. Artificially restricting yourself to only using your mouse is going to severely limit your ability to function.
Obviously I’m talking about the DE packages, not the kernel or CLI base. We are talking about windows users switching to linux-based DEs, which are directly trying to compete with Windows and iOS.
This is not me having issue with CLIs. I’ve been on Linux for decades. I am pointing out the perspective of those that are frustrated with Linux DEs being blatantly unready for mass-adoption, specifically because they expect layman users to learn CLI. See my previous comment and this comment for more details.
It’s just that their expectations do not align with reality and they’re only going to hurt their experience by thinking that there is a path to using Linux without using the terminal. Some distros do a really good job of creating something that seems like a pure GUI experience, but that illusion only lasts right up until there is a problem that the UI designers didn’t anticipate and the only way forward is to type terminal commands.
I’m not trying to be an asshole when I say this kind of thing.
It’s just disingenuous for people to recommend Linux and also say ‘Don’t worry, you won’t need the terminal’ or to foster the illusion, in new users, that their fear of the terminal is justified. I get that, of all things Linux, the most alien thing from a Windows/Smartphone user’s perspective, is a text-based interface.
It seems difficult and social media is full of people acting like the terminal is incredibly difficult to learn so people believe that they can simply opt out of using the terminal. You can’t, and trying to do so is going to make users have a horrible experience. It’d be like telling people that Windows doesn’t require a mouse, that’s possibly true but if a person artificially limits themselves in that way, they’re going to have a much harder time than they would have if they’d spend the time to use the OS properly.
This is kind of erasing the author with your description of the issue. The reason that apps eventually require CLI to complete tasks is because devs think of CLI first and then produce a stop-gap P&CI over top of it. It is explicitly how devs in the Linux environment operate which creates a gap between CLI and P&CI. If apps were developed with P&CI in mind first, with CLI added after, this would not be a problem - and we know this because of every app developed for both Windows and Linux, which lack these gaps in functionality - or lack CLI entirely.
Your stance also de-emphasizes the difficulty of learning CLI for the first time. It’s not the most difficult thing ever, but it can be fairly frustrating. It’s not something you want to deal with when just trying to unwind after work on your PC, or while you’re trying to do your job at work. I think it’s pretty reasonable most people don’t want to have to learn yet another paradigm just to do what they’ve already figured out how to with a P&CI.
Being realistic, of course, this paradigm shift is not going to happen. Linux will continue to be only a small portion of total computers used by end users because of this, and various other reasons it’s found unpalatable.
I’ve heard that KDE and GNOME, however, are both at a level now where P&CIs are all you really need. I have not tried them myself, though.
Linux is the terminal.
The GUI applications are just terminal applications where you press buttons instead of typing. Creating the buttons and UI is extra overhead for developers.
There are people who have learned to use Linux, using whatever tools are best for the job and people who have decided that the only way to interact with a computer is with a mouse and refuse to learn anything else.
You don’t have to swap away from Windows. But, if you choose to, know that you will have to learn a new operating system and, on Linux, this means becoming familiar with the terminal.
If you’re going to artificially limit yourself, despite the chorus of Linux users telling you otherwise, by deciding that any terminal use indicates a failure of the OS or of developers, then you should not use Linux.
It’s hard enough to learn a new OS. Artificially restricting yourself to only using your mouse is going to severely limit your ability to function.
Obviously I’m talking about the DE packages, not the kernel or CLI base. We are talking about windows users switching to linux-based DEs, which are directly trying to compete with Windows and iOS.
This is not me having issue with CLIs. I’ve been on Linux for decades. I am pointing out the perspective of those that are frustrated with Linux DEs being blatantly unready for mass-adoption, specifically because they expect layman users to learn CLI. See my previous comment and this comment for more details.
I do understand their perspective.
It’s just that their expectations do not align with reality and they’re only going to hurt their experience by thinking that there is a path to using Linux without using the terminal. Some distros do a really good job of creating something that seems like a pure GUI experience, but that illusion only lasts right up until there is a problem that the UI designers didn’t anticipate and the only way forward is to type terminal commands.
I’m not trying to be an asshole when I say this kind of thing.
It’s just disingenuous for people to recommend Linux and also say ‘Don’t worry, you won’t need the terminal’ or to foster the illusion, in new users, that their fear of the terminal is justified. I get that, of all things Linux, the most alien thing from a Windows/Smartphone user’s perspective, is a text-based interface.
It seems difficult and social media is full of people acting like the terminal is incredibly difficult to learn so people believe that they can simply opt out of using the terminal. You can’t, and trying to do so is going to make users have a horrible experience. It’d be like telling people that Windows doesn’t require a mouse, that’s possibly true but if a person artificially limits themselves in that way, they’re going to have a much harder time than they would have if they’d spend the time to use the OS properly.
This is kind of erasing the author with your description of the issue. The reason that apps eventually require CLI to complete tasks is because devs think of CLI first and then produce a stop-gap P&CI over top of it. It is explicitly how devs in the Linux environment operate which creates a gap between CLI and P&CI. If apps were developed with P&CI in mind first, with CLI added after, this would not be a problem - and we know this because of every app developed for both Windows and Linux, which lack these gaps in functionality - or lack CLI entirely.
Your stance also de-emphasizes the difficulty of learning CLI for the first time. It’s not the most difficult thing ever, but it can be fairly frustrating. It’s not something you want to deal with when just trying to unwind after work on your PC, or while you’re trying to do your job at work. I think it’s pretty reasonable most people don’t want to have to learn yet another paradigm just to do what they’ve already figured out how to with a P&CI.
Being realistic, of course, this paradigm shift is not going to happen. Linux will continue to be only a small portion of total computers used by end users because of this, and various other reasons it’s found unpalatable.
I’ve heard that KDE and GNOME, however, are both at a level now where P&CIs are all you really need. I have not tried them myself, though.