Should Linux Be More Convenient For Everyone?

[thefrog]

@rabcor

It’s ridiculous that we still use fstab and can only as far as i can tell configure it through a config file, why can’t we have something similar to the windows disk manager?

Why do we need a third party app to edit a file that you can edit just as quickly with a text editor? To me that is not convenient its now making me dependent on another program needed to do a simple task. This is just a waste of resources IMHO.

@rabcor

You need to use the terminal a lot on linux

I find this to be a feature not a hindrance. many things are just simpler to type than it is to look around to see where X Developer moved Y settings cause someone else thought it was a good idea. I think giving others to much control is not a convenience but just laziness.

@anon93652015

The government is too smart to go about it this way

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. The chips just cost to much right now. Wait a few years the hundred year plan will be gone

@s4ndm4n

People are mostly ignorant and marketing tells them what they want.

@Omig

People want computers like the ones in “STAR TREK”, where you can talk to them

If I have to talk to it then its already failed

@Locutus

cause tinkering is toying with it.

Careful you could go blind

@Ben

And so we have issues now with the idea of what is convenient…

Ones Mans Garbage is anothers Treasure kind of thing there.

@Ben

Let’s not blunder too far in the quest for a ‘convenient GUI’.

Agreed.

If you depend on a GUI and it fails to do its job what then?

Some people see searching through GUI’s as productive some see it as a waste of time.

Personally I feel like this:
If you don’t like the terminal then use an OS that doesn’t require you to use one.

[Omig]

@thefrog

If I have to talk to it then its already failed

Failed-by-design? Systemfailure? Talking-as-a-service?

[thefrog]

@Omig

Failed-by-design? Systemfailure? Talking-as-a-service?

Yep

[anon31549144]

@thefrog

I find this to be a feature not a hindrance. many things are just simpler to type than it is to look around to see where X Developer moved Y settings cause someone else thought it was a good idea. I think giving others to much control is not a convenience but just laziness.

“What big deal is it to write a few letters in the terminal?” Terminal evangelists often conveniently gloss over the fact that you need to know what to type in the terminal. You have to know the command and then know the syntax, or if not you need to go through pages of (sometimes cryptic) man.

With GUI you can know nothing, and still use intuition (and established UI conventions) and quickly locate the option that you need. Not only that, but you can also see an array of related options in the same screen, maybe there’s more that you didn’t even know you were interested in. In most terminal programs you never know all the available options, especially if some of them are not documented.

Good UI harnesses intuition. You don’t have to search for an option if your intuition tells you approximately where it is. Either way, in both cases you have a search going on. In the terminal’s case you need to search in text, understand each man page (even if it doesn’t apply to your needs, you can’t know until you’ve read and understood that page), and finally apply the new arcane knowledge you’ve gained, in the second case it’s a heuristic, intuitive visual search (unless it’s a bad UI, in which case you simply try to find something better, or just learn the bad UI, as you would learn a convoluted terminal command).

Finally, how is it more convenient to type a command and a file path when you can just navigate with your mouse and not having to type a 30-letter file-name + a 50-letter leading path. Sure you can use tab, but it’s not available in all contexts, and it’s not always working, if there’s a lot of similarly named files in the same folder. And don’t get me started on typos that can wreck your work.

[drunkenvicar]

@anon31549144

Finally, how is it more convenient to type a command and a file path when you can just navigate with your mouse and not having to type a 30-letter file-name + a 50-letter leading path. Sure you can use tab, but it’s not available in all contexts, and it’s not always working,

what’s the difference? we get to choose. to pretend the terminal has no place in Linux in this foul year of our Lord 2024 is a fallacy—a belief turned irrational [not you; the belief itself if held by someone]. Same on the opposite end of the spectrum: the belief the terminal-emulator should run the whole show also pushes it.

I use the terminal for a lot of stuff. I use the UI for a lot of stuff. I’m happy ! Certainly this is the Linux majority, no?

[anon31549144]

Obviously. I just don’t like it when people bash GUI with broad statements, when both GUI and the terminal have their strengths and weaknesses and both have their place, mostly beside each other. Calling GUI people lazy is like saying people who use cars are lazy. They could just as well walk, it’s healthier. While it might be the case it’s not always convenient or even feasable.

[dimpan]

There’s also something to be said about convenience vs laziness in another context too. I could never for instance convince my parents, well into their 60s to use the terminal. They can kinda sorta find their way around Windows and perhaps if I put Mint or Fedora or Ubuntu or whatever on their laptop, they might not notice. But having to use the terminal? No way. It’s not laziness, people need to understand that Linux is a learning process and some people just don’t have the time or bandwidth to learn, they just want to turn on their computer and do their thing and that’s fine.

In fact, I’d argue that’s exactly the beauty of Linux. For me personally, I hate that Microsoft and Apple get to decide how I am supposed to use my computer, so I started slowly getting into Linux two years ago. I am still learning and will probably never be a wizard. It’s a conscious choice though and every time I watch a YouTube video about Linux or read the Arch wiki or browse these forums or what have you, I am using valuable personal time to do that. Others would not want to use limited and valuable personal time to learn a new OS though, especially because their current one “just works” and guess what? Totally fine and nothing you can do about it. Broad sweeping statements about humanity and laziness and stuff I feel is a bit misplaced if we’re simply talking about OS choice.

[thefrog]

@anon31549144

Calling GUI people lazy is like saying people who use cars are lazy

Do not take something I said out of context please

@thefrog

I think giving others to much control is not a convenience but just laziness.

I said giving over to much control is laziness. I have nothing against GUI’s in fact I use them all the time for big number of task. However there are several task that are just as easy to do in the terminal.

@anon31549144

Calling GUI people lazy is like saying people who use cars are lazy.

This is not a good analogy
Cars have been incorporated into our lives and are a symbol of independent freedom. A transport device to take you where you want and need to go. Or to take you away from someone you need to separate yourself from.

No one is calling anyone Lazy for choosing to use a GUI as I would say that at times its harder to use the GUI than it is to just edit the file yourself.

[ricklinux]

Nothing wrong with a good GUI!

[Ben]

@nate

“What big deal is it to write a few letters in the terminal?” Terminal evangelists often conveniently gloss over the fact that you need to know what to type in the terminal.

I read this just after starting the dinner. As I come out of the kitchen, with my phone in my shirt pocket carrying two cups of coffee, I tell my phone to set a timer to check the rice in 30 minutes.

When you design your applications, and put in features which can be managed via terminal, then this should also be mirrored wherever possible in a GUI.

Furthermore, the question of speech arose earlier. It is pretty hardware dependent, currently needing a hefty GPU to run decent local AI and speech software.

So then we will have the option to open a terminal and work out the command, or reach for a mouse and find the GUI, or call out to the microphone to just tell the computer to do the task.

The arguments here are very biased according to preferences…

Finally, how is it more convenient to type a command and a file path when you can just navigate with your mouse and not having to type a 30-letter file-name + a 50-letter leading path.

I use Dolphin, hit F4, and use zoxide to jump around in a GUI Application. With autocomplete, it can be more convenient. GUI and Commands fight for supremacy - the / filter shortcut in dolphin is pretty killer for isolating a file.

I’m heavily favouring @nate in this debate. When we’re comfortable doing it in terminal, then that’s lovely. But often I can’t remember, and things aren’t easily discoverable.

So then I want some GUI options, a quick click - but that means calling up a timer, or having a plasmoid permanently available on a panel…

Nicer would be a (private) AI assistant whom I could shout at via my microphone 'Hey, can set me a 51 minute timer ‘check rice’?" and have the AI Assistant reply “Sure, timer is set” sleep 51m && notify-send "Check Rice".

[Omig]

That sounds like a “SUI”, a Speech User Interface, in contrast to TUI and GUI. I remember a time when we were told “in four years you will be able to talk to your computer normally”. It’s more than 30 years in the end, but it will come. Maybe not for everyone one of us.

[rabcor]

We need a third party app to edit fstab because unless you know everything there is to know about every filesystem you are ever going to use, every option available in fstab and how and why to use them, you’re going to sometimes end up having to spend hours doing web searches and reading through documentation to figure out where the option you need is… whereas with a gui you could find that option in less than a minute by just looking around. God help you if you’re trying to use something like ntfs (which incidentally is a trap a lot of linux newbies fall into)

That is why. GUI is superior for certain things, and editing something like fstab is absolutely one of them, there’s not even room for debate here.

As for using the terminal a lot, yeah i agree sorta, i really don’t mind using it, a lot of the times i use the terminal because it’s faster than without it (which you would have seen had you read the entirety of my post…) the problem isn’t that you can use a terminal, the problem is the mostly unavoidable need to do so if you are on linux. It sucks for a lot of users, but for people who are new to linux, just about nothing else sucks more than this fact.

@Omig

That sounds like a “SUI”, a Speech User Interface, in contrast to TUI and GUI. I remember a time when we were told “in four years you will be able to talk to your computer normally”. It’s more than 30 years in the end, but it will come. Maybe not for everyone one of us.

I mean, it sounds cool… in movies… but in reality i kinda just don’t want to, and at this rate we will be able to make our computer do anything we want with mind machine interfaces before we will get there anyhow, which is clearly superior.

[joekamprad]

The first thing is simple, Linux needs to be sold on devices as a one to one replacement for devices shipped with other OS on the same point of sale.

And the preinstalled Distribution must be something Average-Joe can use without the need of manual intervention.
Companies do not want customers complaining about “I got black screen of death”
OS needs to be recovering itself, like fedora partly do e.t.c. you will need some tool like WebFai (like Tuxedo is offering) to easy recover / reset OS.

And sure, a device can not be 1/3 higher in price with the same specs. Currently, it is more like most of the Linux devices are 2/3 higher in price.

It could be to sell them in awesome quality like the old day IBM ThinkPads, or with extra service for a more premium price range, but not like we see currently mainly… half-baked not fully perfect … may next release state.

The computer market is full of trash already Linux Computers could make a difference, they could be easy to upgrade with awesome build quality and easy to maintain.
Not including wonky no-name parts, only to perform better Income surplus calculation.

[thefrog]

@rabcor

and editing something like fstab is absolutely one of them, there’s not even room for debate here.

There is always room for debate however your not debating your just insisting your right and I dont care to waste anymore of my time. You do you and have a nice life

[Locutus]

@ricklinux

Nothing wrong with a good GUI!

You sure about that?

OOPs you said GUI not Guy.

[LDC]

I would say “some” distros should be even more focused on helping normies transition, but I wouldn’t like to see, say, EOS becoming a walled garden. I am actually here because it is the closest experience to Arch/LFS, just without disrespecting my time.

[IDKnix]

@joekamprad

And the preinstalled Distribution must be something Average-Joe can use without the need of manual intervention.

like what? average joe is already too scared to even think about linux because of all those years watching those hacker movies. And all distros need manual intervention at some point. Linux Mint may be goto for those devices though

[vazicebon]

@rabcor

nd reading through documentation to figure out where the option you need is… whereas with a gui you could find that option in less than a minute by just looking around.

What make you think that all options/situations you need are covered in a GUI app ? And since you can see options in a GUI program, you magically know what they do, no need to read the doc ?

@rabcor

That is why. GUI is superior for certain things, and editing something like fstab is absolutely one of them, there’s not even room for debate here.

There’s no debate to the point that no one has developed a GUI program for this.

[dalto]

@rabcor

We need a third party app to edit fstab because unless you know everything there is to know about every filesystem you are ever going to use, every option available in fstab and how and why to use them, you’re going to sometimes end up having to spend hours doing web searches and reading through documentation to figure out where the option you need is… whereas with a gui you could find that option in less than a minute by just looking around.

I am all for having GUI tools to manage the complexity of config files but in this particular case, a GUI is of limited use.

The reason is that to configure fstab you need to understand what all those options do and many of them are filesystem-specific. A GUI doesn’t change that. It could make the options more discoverable but it wouldn’t reduce the complexity or the understanding of the individual filesystem you need to have to make the right choices.

What most of the GUIs that add things to fstab do is add entries in a generic way such as using fuse or gvfs. That works for some use cases and not for others.

@rabcor

the problem is the mostly unavoidable need to do so if you are on linux.

I have stated this above but there are distros that don’t require this. The cost for that is reduced flexibility.

[Ben]

@IDKnix

average joe

Walks into the shop. Can’t afford a Mac Pro.

Looks at laptops.

Salesman says ‘I’ll bundle photoshop and Office’.

Job done.