Is Linux easy to use?

I use it on my home stable computer. Cinnamon is so stable it’s absurd. Maybe not so much customization, but it’s great to have a nice reliable backup.

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You can still make Cinnamon look really nice. The other thing that i like about it. On rolling Arch i have for over 5 years seen more issue on other desktops such as Gnome and KDE etc but Cinnamon just works. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I imagine a total n00b and see them running into trubbelz with Endeavour. But give them Minty with Cinnamon and see them soar. And after, say a month, you tell them to install Endeavour - also with Cinnamon - and they will be up to scratch as Arch users in no time. Same happened to me with Manjaro/Mate back in 2013/14. My guruine, Ende forum user Jean Horten, forced me onto Manjaro and I was smitten right away. No way would I ever turn back to any *buntu.

I still fail to see what makes Endeavour so keyboard-centric. Of course knowing some commands is always helpful and makes us look like the most adorable super geeks but it isn’t needed. Nowadays I even use a GUI for installing the updates since it’s a one-click operation and even faster than typing sudo pacman -Syyuu and the password.

Look:

Uhhh, I certainly have not unlocked this DLC :joy:

Does autocomplete have to be turned on?

For bash see:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bash#Tab_completion

or for zsh see:

http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide06.html

No. Just use the tab key!:grin: for instance To remove a folder called apple, write rm -rf /home/user/a [tab] Then it will auto fill Apple!

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Way back in the early 90’s I remember sitting in front of a PC and being presented with a terminal. Starting a degree we’d been given comp sci accounts to use the network. There was no introduction, no written manual, but we literally learned organically.

Within a day or two, I’d learned the basics of tcsh, elm, emacs, ytalk and slew of other applications and commands, without any external intervention. Linux has always been easy to use, if you’re willing to take a little responsibility for your own personal development and learning. Someone who enjoys having things handed to them on a plate, is never going to find anything in life, including Linux, easy.

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Jeez :exploding_head: :sweat_smile:
Not easiest thing in a world, if you ask me :upside_down_face:

It’s practically an OS in itself :laughing:, joe has always had a special place in my heart for text editing, if you grew up using Wordstar, you’ll love joe.

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Wasn’t that UNIX?

It may well have been, I don’t think back then we even knew the difference, and I’d not yet heard of Linux in 1992… wasn’t it started a bit earlier?

Just a passing thought - depending on where you were, it could easily have been Multics instead!

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Initial release 1969; 51 years ago :exploding_head: :scream:

Wow…That’s hardcore :sweat_smile:

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At the same time I was writing apps for db2 on a CP/M card on an Apple II, and developing patient trackers and form fillers for dentists on a C64 - and learning to fly! Definitely not the 60’s! Multics lived on in the University world for some time…

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My birth city is Tilburg NL, always when i walk to the station there was such computer store with all kinda thinks they had red hat on the front of the store kabinet :slight_smile: was always curius what it was :slight_smile:

Honestly don’t know, and didn’t really think of what OS we were using at that time, we just used it… :laughing: But I do remember seeing the name Eric S. Raymond on the initual boot screen… hopefully that will provide some context. There was no GUI at the time on the machines, everything was text-based.

An old joke says that Emacs is a great operating system which is just missing a good text editor. There is truth to that… :grin:

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I heard that - and from a vi perspective (!) it might even have been true…

I tried a couple of times to learn it (or apps with subsets of it) on different OS’s, but I always found something ‘better’ for my use - usually something more lightweight and faster - like CygnusEd on AmigaDOS :grin:

Actually - something I haven’t seen addressed on this thread is that Linux is much harder to learn than it needs to be. You can get there, but the underlying illogic can be problem.

<rant>

First off, command names are a bit strange. The basics are inconsistent, to say the least. Given the ‘C’ background, one expects terse ‘shorthand’ commands, so ls and cd and even rm are perfectly in line - but why on earth is something as basic as mkdir and rmdir not md and rd? And what is with mv? Not the first thing a newbie thinks of the rename something! There is a reason that every GUI I’ve come across uses rename as the command - regardless of it’s ability to move things!

Other command lines I have used have been much simpler to get going on - even MS-DOS became usable by about version 6.22! If I had the skills to create a shell, I would consider a version of Amiga shell for Linux, too.

The other problem is inherent with open source, and the philosophy of extending or forking things that are CLOSE but not THERE yet into what’s wanted. Nearly everything has enough options to be in danger of running out of letters to select them - some have!

</rant>

Just thought that needed pointing out to us bunch of Linux elitists! :smile: It CAN be learned enough to get by, but it is not as easy as it could or should(?) be…

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@keybreak

alien-01-sgs

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I’m not sure there was. Keep in mind companies exists for profit only. I’ve seen a lot of unasked for features being introduces in devices and OSes only to justify a new type of telemetry being rolled out.

No, telemetry is used to increase control. Who really needed to count the steps they do in a day? It brings you little benefit, but gives the companies a huge amount of data about your behavior patterns. The same goes for a lot of the sensors in your phone.

Another example as old as Android itself: if you want to use your location sensor, you must explicitly allow Google to also have a peek at your data.

If they were really concerned about the satisfaction of their customers, they wouldn’t have forced unpopular features down their users` throats like forced updates in Windows 10 or removing settings “to simplify things”. It causes more friction than the “bad things” they tried to guard users against.

I think the companies put a lot of effort to make it seem like it, but in fact they simply look for an excuse to tell people what to do. Usually telling people to do things that bring profit or more control to the companies themselves.

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