from KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world to linux@lemmy.ml on 05 Jun 18:22
https://lemmy.world/post/16214461
We’ve all heard it before: People claiming Linux isn’t a viable alternative cause you can’t run it without using the command line.
I decided to test that. Now there are several distros aimed at new users that have preinstalled GUI tools so you don’t have to touch the Terminal. But I wanted to see if that’s also possible on a distro not specifically aimed at fresh converts. The oldest distro with a large userbase, which a lot of people consider to be a “standard” Linux, is Debian, so default Debian with Gnome is what I’ll use.
I consider “running an OS” to at least include booting it with full disk encryption, starting applications, connecting to a network, browsing the web, file management, installing updates and new software (both from the repos and third party sources), installing necessary drivers, setting up printing and scanning, and adjusting the looks and behaviour of the user interface.
So generally anything you’d be able to do on Windows without opening Powershell, CMD, Regedit or a text editor.
I guess I’m telling you nothing new when I say that you can install, boot, launch apps and browse the web on Debian without the command line.
It comes with a pre-installed software center, printer and scanner setup works out of the box from Gnome’s settings.
Here’s where it gets a little trickier: Scrolling on Firefox is rough, cause the preinstalled old version doesn’t have Wayland support enabled. So you either have to enable Wayland support or install the Flatpak version of Firefox.
To enable Wayland, you have to write MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 into /etc/environment. But the file manager doesn’t let you edit system files without starting it as root from the command line. To add an “edit as admin” entry to the context menu in Nautilus, you need the nautilus-admin package which isn’t available in the software center. It can be installed with Synaptic, a pre-installed GUI frontend for apt. But you still need to edit a system text file, which goes against the spirit of this challenge.
The other option requires enabling Flatpak for the Software Center. You can do that by installing gnome-software-plugin-flatpak using synaptic, then heading over to flathub.org/setup/Debian to download the flathub repo file which can be installed with a double-click and a reboot.
Note: Beginner-friendly distros ship with a newer Firefox version and Flatpak support out of the box.
To install any compatible binary on your system (like the Universal Android Debloater, for example), just copy it to any place you like. Install the menu editor alacarte and use it to add a menu entry for the file. Now you can launch it from within Gnome by clicking on its icon or using the global search.
Another issue is that during the boot process, you’re already presented with the command line running boot messages by you, and the password prompt for the disk decryption is also on the command line. Also, the 5 second Grub countdown is kind of annoying. To make this prettier, we need to install grub-customizer, launch it, set the grub countdown to 0 and add the word splash at the end of your kernel parameters in the settings. This activates the “boot-prettifier” plymouth which is pre-installed but not activated by default. Again, pushing the boundaries of this challenge.
Note: Beginner-friendly distros come with pretty plymouth boot enabled by default.
To enable the non-free nvidia Driver, you need to enable non-free software during the GUI installation or in the Software Center settings, then install nvidia-driver from Synaptic, and reboot.
Note: Beginner-friendly distros come with a one-click NVidia driver install
To install Steam from the Debian repos, you’d need to enable Multi-Arch first, which isn’t possible without the command line. Using the Flatpak version is your other option.
Note: Some beginner-friendly distros handle this for you as soon as you install a package that depends on multi-arch
tl/dr: It’s possible to run and administer Debian for standard tasks without touching the command line. It’s just generally faster to use the terminal if you know what you’re doing.
Distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin or Pop!_OS (possibly also Manjaro which I have no experience with) remove the remaining roadblocks. The only time you’ll always need the command line is to fix issues you have with help from other users, because it’s much, much easier to just post the right terminal commands online than to guide you through whichever GUI you might be using.
Anyone who’s ever followed a Windows troubleshooting guide knows what I’m talking about.
threaded - newest
Debian is great for servers, not for desktop novices. Use a state of the art desktop OS like fedora (atomic) and you won’t face a lot of those issues.
Yes, linux “has a problem” with nvidia but we should blame nvidia, not linux.
I paid for a keyboard, I’m going to use a keyboard!
Every key, too! I may not know what the heck SysReq is, but I’m hitting it!
There is one simple question you gotta ask yourself.
Is it worth it to press SysReq without knowing what it will do?
“do you feel lucky, punk?”
Yes, but no…
For a basic user, who does not expect to be doing anything special beyond opening existing programs, or using programs downloaded from the package-manager its possible to never touch terminal.
I have two kids who daily drive Manjaro based light gaming PC’s, they never touch the terminal, but they also dont administer their systems, I do.
I do use the terminal, frequently for updates, and some specialized tasks like minecraft mods which require unpacking files and sometimes fixing permissions.
So my TLDR, is that its possible to be a USER without touching the terminal, but I dont think its possible to be an administrator without.
You can update the system with the Software Center / Pamac / Synaptic, and unpack archives and adjust permissions from within Nautilus.
or, I can SSH from my computer in a different room, and do it with one CMD in terminal :)
Yes, it’s faster with the Terminal, but you said that it’s impossible without one, which just isn’t true.
o sure, I could walk over and put in my admin password and do it all in the GUI. I cant think of any basic things that require terminal with modern DE’s like KDE. I just use terminal for remote management because its simpler than trying to work at their desks.
I think that the same principle applied to Windows/Mac, doing any administrator work without terminal seems impractical or impossible.
Suse with Yast makes it possible to administer just with GUI. Not 100% sure if it can do absolutely everything possible but it has lots of tools.
I use the Plasma app store Discover to update, upgrade, install and uninstall apps. Everything is easy. Even unpacking files and permissions are easy in the file manager. No need for CLI as I’m a home PC user.
Yeah. My sister uses Linux, and I’ve taught her basic commands to just make things easier (apt install, cd, ls, that sorta thing). And she knows how to find a decent website for support and copy the commands, which are usually fine.
I feel like Mint is the move if you never want to utilize the terminal. But while it can be intimidating initially, after using it, you’ll grow to love it. Truly makes life way easier. I learned by first finding threads on my issues to copy and paste commands. After doing that enough you’ll gain an understanding of the main commands pretty quick. Fedora is a great starter in my mind, as you can do everything through the GUI when first starting, but unlike Mint, you can still get nerdy with the terminal when you feel up to it. Using a VM is a solid option to learn the terminal without any risk, worst case just delete the VM and make another. But you’d have to mess up pretty thoroughly to need to do that in my experience. Fedora, or Nobara which is a gaming and media centric fork of Fedora, are amazing due to the ability to run great out of the box plus being able to dial in anything you want to alter for your needs down the road. Fedora’s Software center allows you to add flatpak and snap packages, so it’ll all be in one place. Fedora 40 makes NVIDIA drivers pretty easy to deal with too. But this is just my two cents, I’m curious to see what others recommend for you.
I had a situation where the updater didnt work at all so I had to go full debian, knew the steps luckily, and it was a pain.
Like manually searching for version nicknames and changing a textfile.
In Fedora? I’ve had one or two issues with the updater if I postponed the updates for a while, yet sudo dnf update always fixed the issue. I feel like thats step one for terminal use really. It’s also nice when it’s done this way you typically don’t need to reboot, unless it’s kernel or driver updates.
No in Linux Mint. The version was something 20.1 or so and 21.3 is the latest or something.
The updater didnt work at all, apt worked normally.
So
Worked perfectly, the amount of stuff that can be updated, stopped, swapped without a reboot is fascinating.
Fedora atomic is throwing all that over board, you always need to reboot, there is just one function to get the new stuff. Okay you can install stuff with cache only and a few more tricks. But by default it is
rpm-ostree updateorrpm-ostree rebaseFedora always requires a reboot for big upgrades, not sure what these are specificslly, for stability, which makes sense.
But atomic doesnt, it goes on the live system in the background, pretty cool.
Interresting list, thanks.
Regarding the Firefox Wayland variable, it should be possible to add the line in ~/.profile instand. And that file can simple be opend by showing hidden files in the file manager of choice.
There are tons of things a distro needs to preconfigure for you to work like that.
It can absolutely work. Imagine:
:latestversions so version upgrades are automaticBut for some stuff CLI is needed.
why are people so terrified of the terminal?
No one is “terrified” of the terminal. It’s just significantly more complicated to use. You cannot “just figure it out”. Literally anything you want to do with it you have to figure out what the actual commands are, and you have to type them exactly. Where in a GUI all the options are laid out for you and you just click them. Terminal also often doesn’t give any feedback if something is actively processing or finished. I don’t understand why this needs to be explained.
That's kinda why shells like Fish are so nice, it shows autocompletes, shows me not only commands, filenames, but also arguments too commands too. If i vaguely remember what the name of the command is, I don't really have to open up and documentation or google to find it out, i just try some combos and usually get it. The real weird thing is why distros don't ship with user friendly shells, but insist on sticking with bash
Never heard of it
Lol it's great, you should try it
There’s a bunch of standards that were supposed to keep all Unix-like systems compatible with each other (POSIX).
Linux deviated from them, then set up a bunch of different standards to make sure all Linux distros are compatible with each other (LSB).
Almost no Linux distro nowadays still follows those standards either, but they are the reason Bash is the default. Fish isn’t standard-compliant.
I landed on oh-my-bash, zoxide and some other utilities. It really improved my terminal experience.
Not even worth replying, this is just nonsense you just made up.
mhm, i totally love how
cp,mv,rmdoesn’t show ANYTHING resembling progress while it shows a simple blinking cursor, it doesn’t event prevent the user from typing anything.They’ve been raised on systems where you don’t need it, and they fundamentally don’t understand how one talks to a computer. It’s actually quite a bit to learn, and if you didn’t grow up doing it, it seems like a big cliff.
Because until you spend many hours getting used to it, it’s annoying as hell. I’m a longtime bash user, but if I have to do anything in PowerShell, it sucks. Bash is even less friendly to novice/casual users due to tools like awk and sed being totally obtuse. When you’re unfamiliar with the workflow, not being to see everything you’re able to do at a glance is pretty frustrating.
I mean, the answer to this is obvious if you can empathize.
Gui has baked into it hints on cause and effect. The terminal is a freeform incantation machine where you need to know and utter magic spells.
sudo rm -rf /
Is just as magically nonsense as
sudo apt-get update
If you don’t know what ANY of it does, your capacity to fuck things up is unbounded on the terminal. In a GUI, rightly or wrongly, you expect your capacity to fuck things up is bounded by the context at hand. I do not expect that I can nuke my system clicking through Firefox.
You can claw the terminal from my cold dead hands, but I’m not offended by the notion of a GUI.
Why? Because developer attention scales broadly by usage. Well used projects get more love. If we could even break 10% home adoption of any Linux distro and the runaway effect of net new developer input would destroy closed source operating systems, and I’m here for it. If that means adding a fucking Ubuntu checkbox to let people enable Wayland without strictly requiring the command line go fucking nuts.
this explains caution, wariness, concern, unfamiliarity with the terminal – it doesn’t explain the revulsion people show to even the thought of the terminal as a partner to a GUI
IMO, caution, wariness, concern, and unfamiliarity manifest as revulsion.
EVs. Solar panels. Heat pumps. Anything outside of CIS heteronormal relationships.
I’m my experience, after the age of like, 25, people (in GENERAL… Obviously many expectations) feel like they’ve got life figured out and push back against pretty much anything that challenges whatever they’ve grown accustomed to.
Nobody bitched about the DOS prompt when nobody knew how to use computers. Young people learned it. Old people insisted computers were a fad and pushed back entirely.
In my calculation, it’s just typical and predictable human response. Open to other theories though.
mhm but the first time you invoke sudo, you get hit with that sudo warning which should trigger something in the user that perhaps they should rethink what they are doing.
Right, and so if you have no idea what ANY of it means you just bail back to windows.
or you know, you could ask people. You wouldn’t start linux if you aren’t curious and or have someone in your circle who knows about linux a bit more.
I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen absolutely terrible advice posted and taken regarding how to do things in Linux. Can’t connect to something? Easy, make a blanket iptables rule to permit everything. Something can’t read a file? Chmod 777. Install isn’t working? Just install as root and use root as your general login from there on out.
It’s hard to learn Linux.
But it’s even harder to FORGET what you’ve learned, to empathize with what it was like to not understand it at all. That’s why it’s SO HARD for us who’ve been using it daily for a decade to empathize with newcomers.
It’s why people literally can’t fathom why people are afraid of the terminal.
It’s why, even when someone takes the time to explain why, people go, “nah, that couldn’t possibly be it”
It’s like when gun people can’t comprehend why people are afraid of guns. The answer is obvious they just can’t hear it.
Edit: I think I better understand that there are more nuances around the cases now, and I think I’m being unfair by making blanket statements about what is and isn’t obvious
I agree that learning Linux, when all you’ve known was Windows, is hard.
My first computer had only PCDOS (it was the early 90s) and I’ve never been afraid of a black screen with a white cursor blinking.
But I refuse that someone who would be interested in Linux, would just willy nilly install it, has to resort to the terminal, is faced with the sudo screen and then just give up. It’s after all not a drop in replacement, neither is macOS.
So where did that interest stem from?
Influencers on Social Media? Why not ask those, asking questions doesn’t make you look stupid (unless the questioned are stupid themselves and have a superiorty complex).
As a recommendation from a friend? Well that friend totally is now their tech support for anything linux.
Or they are own their own but then that curiosity has to be quite immense to begin with and something like a terminal wouldn’t deter them.
Ok, I think I see your position more clearly now:
You’re thinking about people who are interested and installing based on technical interest and curiosity.
In those cases, I think you’re probably right. There is probably some base competency at play. A desire to learn. Probably someone in their sphere to support.
I’m thinking more about the type of people who would buy a Chromebook. Or my cheap ass parents who want to squeeze another 5 years out of an ailing laptop. They don’t want to spend any money and just want to use Facebook and YouTube. Send some emails. Connect to wifi. Print their boarding passes. Not have their machines riddled with viruses within minutes because their windows OS isn’t getting security updates anymore. I think this is actually a massive use case, and I want Linux to be accessible to them without needing to use the terminal for anything.
The terminal killed my dog and raped my wife!
Well, the good news is that of course you can use Linux with only as much command line interaction as you get in Windows.
The bad news is that the command line REALLY isn't what's keeping people away from Linux.
Hell, in that whole list, the most discouraging thing for a new user isn't the actually fairly simple and straightforward terminal commands, it's this:
This is a completely inscrutable sentence. It is a ridiculous notion, it brings up so many questions and answers none. It relates to concepts that have no direct equivalent in other platforms and even a new user that successfully follows this post and gets everything working would come out the other end without understanding why they had to do what they did or what the alternative was.
I've been saying it for literal decades.
It's not the terminal, it's not the UX not looking like Windows.
I fully agree, regarding Debian. I would never recommend it to any new user. However, every single distro actually targeted at new users doesn’t have this issue.
And if I hadn’t known about this issue before, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed that scrolling is a bit smoother after the adjustment.
Bonus: Windows has enough of these completely inscrutable mannerisms as well. Want to change the icon of a program pinned to the taskbar? You’ll find the shortcut file in
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBarWant to switch to a different standard browser? In Windows 11, you have to set that for every single file type a browser can open separately.
Want to write a lengthy formula in Excel? There’s a hard-coded 255 character limit.
The list goes on.
Yeah, for sure. If you just drop Ubuntu or Fedora or whatever on a machine where everything works for you out of the box the experience is not hard to wrap your head around. Even if one thing needs you to write something in a terminal following a tutorial, that's also frequent in Windows troubleshooting.
The problem is that all those conversations about concurrent standards for desktop environments, display protocols, software distribution methods and whatnot are hard to grasp across the board. If and when you hit an issue that requires wrapping your head around those that's where the familiarity with Winddows' messy-but-straightforward approach becomes relevant.
In my experience it's not going through the motions while everything works or using the system itself, it's the first time you try to go off the guardrails or you encounter a technical issue. At that point is when the hidden complexity becomes noticeable again. Not because the commands are text, but because the underlying concepts are complex and have deep interdependencies that don't map well to other systems and are full of caveats and little differences depending on what combination of desktop and distro you're trying to use.
That's the speed bump. It really, really isn't the terminal.
This is also true for Windows though.
Thanks for the list. It’d be interesting to see something like the Are We X Yet sites for Mozilla/Rust projects that tracks this sort of thing
.
The problem is no one wants to make a GUI guide for Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, Mate, XFCE, and so on and so forth.
.
You are saying that they should make GUI’s. I thought we were talking about guides here?
I’m not a fan of this approach. I think the idea that users should never touch a command line is an inherently proprietary philosophy. Without the command line, at any given moment, the user is fundamentally limited to whatever options the developer elected to offer.
I think a good GUI will assist a user in learning text configuration and command line functions.
What does a command line have to do with being proprietary?
I strongly disagree because users don’t WANT to learn or use a terminal and you can’t change their minds.
You can’t run the linux I use (nixos) without the command line.
The mobile linuxes are way more GUI oriented. Android is first on that list. But also the various other linuxes that target phones, with UIs like phosh. On those I’d say you can mostly never touch a terminal.
But I don’t think you’ll ever be able to do ALL the things without touching the command line though. There’s a lot of software that’s intended to run in a no-GUI situation, like a headless server or embedded. Sometimes a GUI interface will be provided, but I doubt that kind of thing will ever be GUI-first.
Yeah, with Nvidia you’re going to have a bad time never using CLI since their driver can ball kick you to TTY when GDM or SSDM takes a shit from Nvidia linker fuckups.
I think it’s perfectly possible to use Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora without the terminal. But a lot of online tutorials are like, “Just run this command.” because it’s faster.
I’m an experienced terminal user but I know with my Steam Deck, I barely ever use it. Really the only time is when I want to update packages quicker than using the GUI tool. But you could successfully use a Steam Deck without ever launching into Desktop mode, much less opening a terminal.
The command-line is not just faster, it is also much more universal.
You and I may use different distros and different desktop environments. If you want to create instructions that tell us how to do something using the GUI, there is an excellent chance you need different instructions for each of us. If you instead give us CLI instructions, there is an excellent chance that the same instructions will work for both of us.
The CLI is not faster for everyone. Especially non IT users who don’t know any of the options and would have to search the web every time. And there are so many commands the CLI is useless at. Graphics and presentations a big fail. And few people use CLI for email or spreadsheets.
GUI users have a chance to work out how to use a new GUI 99% of the time, as it is all familiar. No exact syntax to type perfectly or it will fail. On other occasions, web help tells you where an option or command is. There is no need to entirety change the way you work, just for a few times when learning new software.
I run mint on my “home entertainment center”. Just an old laptop with a wireless mouse and keyboard.
Granted I don’t use it for much, but once I had mint on it, I’ve only used the desktop environment. Mostly because I’m leaning back in a slothful, shameful lump, and this is not conducive to typing. So I spend way too long pecking at things with the mouse.
Pain in the ass? Yes.
Way more tedious and time consuming? Yes
Possible? Also yes
I don’t think you really do anymore. I’d consider myself an experienced Linux user. I’ve been using it as a my desktop OS for over 20 years. I’ve also used Linux heavily through my career and am completely comfortable with the command line.
With recent installs of Fedora the only thing I use the command line for is the initial setup of the multimedia codecs. After that I haven’t been required to touch it.
I used to consider a terminal required to keep your desktop Linux system running. Now I look at is as an optional install for programmers.
what?
Yes. Pretty much on all distros. Also its a very different feeling than when you do it on Windows. On linux its to do a specif desired task and it doesnt have that strange feeling of just running an obscure that you dont understand command like on Windows.
Keep it to Fedora, Opensuse, Ubuntu/Debian or Endevour. The first two are the bests.
The only way I know of to fix the bios time issue when dual booting with windows is using the cmdline on Linux, or regedit on windows.
Or answering the question whether your BIOS time is set to UTC correctly during Linux installation.
Ah, I haven’t seen this as an option in any installer I’ve used. I guess Debian has it?
At least the Debian expert installer has it.
Firefox and forks have Wayland support (MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1) by default since version 121 or so.
Yes but Debian still ships a version that doesn’t.
I wish I could just go 10 minutes without using terminal.
I always think Linux caters to people with incredibly basic requirements such as a bit of web browsing, emails, and editing a document. And it obviously caters to total nerds like the kind of people who subscribe to the Linux section of Lemmy.
However, it really doesn’t cater well to the inbetweeners who want stuff a bit more advanced than what an iPad can do, it kind of just lumps them with a huge learning curve and says “get on with it”.
In my opinion the intermediate stuff on windows is just as conceptually complex but presented with nested GUIs. People internalise that complexity out of familiarity.
I didn’t use early generation smart phones and was completely bewildered when I discovered apps often used swiping left/right to interact. No app I had used before ever indicated that was an option. I suggested we should add indicators to our app to teach people but that was rejected because “everyone knows that”. It’s easy when you know how.
As a nerd who subscribes to the Linux section of Lemmy; well done for everyone trying to learn something new. The learning never stops :')
Oh it’s even worse when you did have experience with early smartphones. I’ve used Windows CE phones, Blackberrys, PalmOS phones, early Androids, and since 2015, iOS. None of them did things the same way, but all navigated using clickable objects on the screen. I was shocked when I had accidentally stumbled upon gestures. In 2017.
I’m still discovering new gestures, usually by accident. It’s becoming more intuitive, but only because I now know that it might be an option.
As someone who prefers using the terminal for many common tasks, it’s hard for me to imagine what is forcing you to the terminal that often.
No, nor should the user be encouraged to. Shell is often the best tool for the job for things like filesystem operations and scripting for a unix environment. Limiting yourself as a user just to copy Windows’ and MacOS’ paradigm is just hurting yourself in the long run.
The long run of… just using your PC without tinkering with it? Most people don’t want to mess with their OS, they want it to JUST WORK.
I would hardly call using the shell “tinkering”. It’s just a different interface.
Yeah, my mum isn’t going into the shell. She’s 65.
I don’t really like the idea of ‘beginner friendly’ like ‘you’ll get better and start doing it the real way’. It’s not some esport where it’s easy to play and hard to master, it’s a toolbox where it’s only job is to get out of the way of you accessing your tools.
Operating systems are middleware.
Most Windows and Mac users have no idea what a script is,nor do they care. That doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from moving over to a Linux distro, and never having to touch a terminal is entirely doable for common users in most distros.
Why are we trying to alienate people looking to drop proprietary BS by fearmongering?
If you’re on GNOME, KDE or any of the other DEs for that matter, and you’re not a geek, yes you can live on GUI alone these days.
Imagine how much easier their lives would be if they did (at least the MacOS users, since Windows has yet to find a usable shell).
Unless you have exactly 1 tech support issue, in which the assistant will tell you to open a terminal for diagnostics, because any other interface for debugging is insane. Telling users they shouldn’t learn shell is just setting them up for being dependent on users that do.
I agree that everyone using any Linux distro should be acquainted with terminal commands, I would never say they shouldn’t. However, most of the DEs do allow to use the computer over GUI exclusively. Things have improved dramatically for Linux, to the point that using anything else is more a PITA than any Linux distro.
As for being dependent on users that do know how to “CLI”, most of us started right there. Additionally, most users that migrate will eventually start trying the terminal, and we all know where that leads.
It is good of you to do this work and post your findings, so no offense intended, but this command line meme is better off not being spread. The terminal is a tool and should be used when it’s needed. Time spent worrying about this is time that could be spent making it easier to understand.
I was introduced to the terminal by a friend so I don’t know of a good starting tutorial for newbies. I wasn’t interested until I saw you could use the output of one command as the input of another command using a “pipe”, the | character on the keyboard.
You are right that the terminal is a really useful tool. But for the average user, the terminal is intimidating.
No other OS works like Linux in term of UX. You can use iOS or Windows without a command line all your life.
As this post describe, it is next to impossible with a Linux Distro.
For the people that want Linux to be mainstream, this is an important hurdle to go over.
I know that Windows sometimes shit the bed where you need to edit a register or use PowerShell, but for the vast majority of people, it won’t be needed ever in their life.
I once saw an adult struggle to navigate the cursor to a button. It’s a trivial task to most people but that’s only true when you know how.
The terminal is not innately intimidating, it’s just new - it’s not something that they were taught in school. That’s where the hurdle actually is.
The CLI has lots of hurdles. Such having a blank screen with no prompts. Where the GUI shows the options you have. And 1 click to set the option. And how to unset the option is obvious. You only need to half remember a feature. Not precisely memorise and type command exactly or it will fail. Or worse, delete something you need. The GUI is preferred by the vast majority for good reason.
This is not true, specially with atomic distros. You can get away with doing everything via GUI. I love my terminal, I can shave off hours of GUI with a few commands, but my kids and wife are also Linux users exclusively, and none of them have ever touched the terminal (yet).
Its not possible to use windows to its fullest without the command line. You can muddle along and miss out without it but you will always hit a point where the cli is the best way forward.
Depends what you are doing on Windows. I’ve never needed the command line.
Is it possible to use Linux without the command line? Yes. Should you do it? Definitely not.
Am using Steam Deck as desktop replacement. I refuse to fuck with terminal, and have found a flatpack/GUI/web version of everything I want to do. I’m a 50yo nerd using PCs since the early 90s. I could probably learn linux command line stuff if I wanted to, but I want my machine to work for me, not the other way around.
Tell me, why should I not be doing this?
People try their hardest to make computers your friends. Don’t be afraid to talk to them 😊
In KDE (well, in dolphin) you can edit files in system folders from GUI if you type
admin://path/to/folder. You might need to install one kio-admin before tho, and you need dbus and polkitDebian’s great but not the best choice here.
“GUI makes easy tasks easier, CLI makes hard tasks possible”. I’m a Debian user and lately I haven’t been touching terminal at all, unless it’s an inherently terminal task like programing. My only complaint now is that when I did an grub update my config file got reverted to the defaults. All of a sudden I couldn’t boot to Windows from grub because os-prober got dissabled (I’m dualbooting). Fixing that is not hard, as you only have to uncomment one line in the config, but it’s annoying that it happend.
If you’re not going to be tinkering, and all you want is your computer to work, absolutely.
Everyone who has an Android phone “uses Linux without the command line.” Your question, however, seems to be “is it possible to play Windows games on Debian without the command line” (edit: or, more broadly, “how suitable is Debian as a Windows replacement”) which is not the same question.
i still don’t understand why people are scared of command line when a lot of the fixes for windows bullshit require it in addition to registry editing, and also sometimes gpedit which is enterprise only now iirc.
Most users of Windows aren’t editing the registry, no matter what problems they encounter.
For power users that do use regedit, I’d argue there’s still a gap between that and using a shell. The registry can be edited entirely with the Windows graphical utility, after all.
They said “in addition to registry editing”.
Well yes, largely for the same reason people are driving around on bald tires, paper thin brake pads and three drops of oil in the sump. It’s because the education system has failed them in one way or another.
I have noticed two trends over time:
You’re increasingly likely to be told to edit the registry to customize a Windows machine. Back in the 98/ME/XP days, you just didn’t hear about the registry. You might have known it existed if you were some kid with your dad’s hand-me-down Pentium III HP Pavilion, but you NEVER touched it. Sometime around Windows 8 you started to see guides talking about “If you want to put it back to behaving like Win 7 did, just add this registry key.”
You are decreasingly likely to be told to open the terminal and run some arcane command to customize a Linux machine. GUI tools in distros designed for newcomers, casual users or gamers (things like Mint, Pop!_OS or Nobara) are increasingly complete and rely on users manually editing config files or running commands for fewer and fewer “typical” tasks.
The Registry Editor is a GUI that doesn’t rely on memorising commands. This is home territory for users. A tree to navigate, similar to a file manager is very familiar. Even the first time. Just give me the path. It is also easy to work out how to edit entries, and to revert changes. Sure, you might not like the looks of it. But it lies in the ‘normal’ world. Not in some strange world. People not into usability sometimes don’t get that.
I’ve been using Linux as a desktop and server since 2015, before that I was Windows only from 1995. Regedit scares me.
Yes. You can bork your system via the registry. But only some parts of the registry are dangerous. Changing the mouse scrolling direction as I do, hasn’t given me issues so far.
most people I have dealt with can’t even get on the internet if the browser icon moves a few spaces over. regular settinngs menus are out of the question for them, let alone an extra program for settings with names that don’t reflect their purpose in a laymans eyes. On the other hand I have had pretty decent success telling people to press win+x, release the keys, press a or whatever for cmd/powershell then copy paste a one liner, assuming a cmd/powershell command is available for the issue. or making a registry file they can double click.
Sure there are some people who can’t do anything. But there are a large number of full time computer users not in IT who know their GUIs really well. These are candidates to switch to Linux.
If you give someone a text string to paste in, chances are they won’t be able to tell if it worked. They might need another command for that. And how can they undo that command? And the next time they need that command they’ll have to have stored that command string somewhere! Which is why it is better to show them the option in their application GUI, as the GUI will provide feedback on the status. And makes it obvious how to undo the change, and they know where to go next time. Otherwise they are dependent on you forever. Also, I doubt if there are any text commands for most things I do on a computer.
You don’t design a UI around the relatively few occasions when GUI help is too hard for some helper.
Yup, I don’t understand it either. Many “how to fix …” articles involve quite a lot powershell magic. And I say “magic” because IMO they are often essentially API calls which I find far harder to grasp than config files that follow some logic and help me understand what is interacting how.
Some of them throw up their hands and reinstall at the first sign of a problem. The rest get someone else to do the “hard” part for them, in my experience. They hand it over to the Unofficial Repair Person Paid in Beer and Pizza, who does the command-line stuff, registry editing, etc. Or they get an official repair person. Less than 10% of the Windows-using population does their own fixes.
I’m not reading all that. The answer is no.
I read all of that and determined that OP is likely suffering from manic psychosis.
Wait…OpenSUSE /SUSE has YAST2-GUI GTK for everything. No need for cli, all the admin stuff, even kernel boot params, services, servers, changing various config files is all in a GUI environment.
OpenSUSE has YAST2-GUI GTK. Full GUI for everything, users, hardware review, even fiddling with kernel, services, or editting text config files via admin gui.
Yes. I’ve been using Linux for over 10 years without touching the command line. I used Ubuntu up to Unity, then switched to Kubuntu and Plasma. I’m not in IT, so I don’t need IT stuff. It all works by GUI. People who haven’t tried it might say it’s not possible. But they are not speaking from experience. Some others, not interested usability, don’t understand why GUIs are so successful and dominant. Which is absolutely fine, as long as they don’t try think they are suddenly knowledgeable in usability, and have tried 10+ years of GUI only.
Kind of, but why? I understand why the CLI is intimidating to a newbie but it’s not some arcane magic for leet haxxorz, but a poweful tool that everyone can learn to use. We Linux users weren’t born knowing how to use it just like a Windows user wasn’t born knowing how to use Control Panel. It’s a different way of working with a computer, but with patience and learning it will become a useful asset, I can’t imagine using a computer without it now.
It’s not intimidating it is a archaic unneeded hindrance.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t mind CLI for advanced users and advanced niche technical stuff.
But when an average non technical user needs to open CLI to install the OS, applications, or drivers for standard computing uses. That is a complete failure of the OS in a desktop environment.
Just out of curiosity, are you on Windows? If yes, I get why you’d think the CLI is archaic and a hindrance, it’s a terrible experience there. Whole other story on Linux and Mac though. As one example I personally think “sudo apt install name-of-program” is just a more straightforward and easier experience than browsing an app store or downloading an installer. I don’t mean to be an evangelist, it’s fine to stick to what works for you, but just because you’re used to one way of doing things doesn’t mean it’s the only good way.
You missed the point, expecting a non technical casual user to type in a bunch of commands that are completely foreign to them. And they don’t understand, is a failure of the OS. Full stop.
“As one example I personally think “sudo apt install name-of-program” is just a more straightforward and easier experience than browsing an app store or downloading an installer.”
Spoken like a true techie cultist that doesn’t comprehend how a typical casual user thinks.
Users think the way they do because of what they’ve gotten used to in decades of Windows or Mac usage. Commands don’t HAVE to be foreign, I genuinely think people starting out with computers would be perfectly capable of learning the basics just like they learn what a file explorer or a web browser is. Someone advanced enough to install a different OS in the first place would especially benefit from this. We’re fighting over nothing anyway, you can use many modern Linux distros without ever touching the CLI.
Also, massive cringe discarding someone with a different opinion as a “tech cultist”.
None of the three things you listed need the CLI, except for a couple of distros. Most distros can use the GUI for those.
Does Android count?
Stupidest motherfuckers I have seen in my life could operate computers back when the only “command line” was an actual programming language in the 1980s and also during the MS-DOS boom
This CLI fear is something completely unfounded
It’s not always *fear *of the CLI. I am not interested in memorising a whole load of unnecessary stuff I’d need, to start using a CLI, that I can already do productively with the GUIs. I’m not in IT. I know my way around GUI applications quite well. So it’s more worthwhile extending my knowledge there.
My wife uses Linux and barely touches the CLI. And when she does, she is only running 1 or 2 specific commands I found for her, that are tied to her needs. But, her main computing device is her phone, so the laptop only gets use a couple of times a month.
It’s also true for other distros. Not because they have poor GUI tools but because CLI is faster than GUI if you know what you are doing.
It reaaaally depends. Say the person only needs a browser, once they or someone installs the OS, they can just go to firefox and get started doing whatever they do. If they want to play some games then they might need to learn how to get steam, wine, lutris and stuff installed. However, some distros like Bazzite has that installed. I guess it all depends what they want to do with the computer and how much they want to play around with it.
as much as you can use windows without touching the command line, so long as you don’t fuck about with stuff or want to do anything particularly fancy you have no reason to touch the terminal, but if you break stuff then just like with windows you’ll want to use the terminal to fix things because otherwise you’ll be spending 5 hours clicking your fingers off in a graphical problem solver.
Many times you need to use the terminal with Win and Mac too. Sometimes something goes wrong, or you need to enable something that doesn’t have a UI. So in the last few years, I’ve used the terminal with these OSes too. So I don’t see why you wouldn’t use the terminal with Linux too.
The only time you wouldn’t use the terminal at all, is if someone else is your sysadmin, and you’re just driving a browser or a couple of apps, as a plain user. Then sure, you’ll never need to touch the terminal. My mom only uses a browser for example on her linux laptop. It’s good enough for her. But when there’s an update or anything else such, I’m the one dealing with it.
No.
I have never seen a good enough answer for it, so I will take a shot today.
Is it possible to use Windows without Registry .reg hacks?
Is it possible to use Windows without pirated software?
Is it possible to use Windows without a solid antimalware solution?
The level of difficulty with Linux and Windows is similar. We find Windows easier only because:
Why would you? The command line is the natural way of interacting with a computer. GUIs are just for convenience. What you’re asking is like „can there be a city where the public transport is so good that I never have to walk“.
And that’s a fact for every operating system, not only Linux.
N-natural?
Plus there are many, many, many, many use cases for a computer. Even the ones you don’t even think about, like bird sighting.
“The command line is the natural way of interacting with a computer.”
It’s not natural at all for many people. Far from it.
English is the natural way of communicating with Americans. A lot of people don’t find that natural (because they don’t speak English), but that is their fault, not the Americans‘.
If a user speaks a different language, good usability knowledge will tell you, change the software to help the user. Not change the user to help the software. The software is only there to make things easier for people.
As I said for many people, the tasks they do are not always possible or not easy with the CLI. Try drawing a curve, try moving an object from bottom left to a position higher up to the right. Even navigating a tree structure, common in many apps, it’s easy to click on a chosen branch directly. Even with CLI options, more people, including CLI users, feel it’s natural to use a GUI app to do their email, manage files or browse the web. There is a lot of learnability built in. Discovering new things by accident is a natural benefit. And a big downside of the CLI. Which is not THE natural way at all.
So two people communicate, one is American speaking English and the other is a Natmurrikan, speaking their Natmurrikan language. The former communicates with the latter and the latter communicates with the former. So if they speak Natmurrikan and it doesn’t feel natural for the American, is that right that this is the American’s fault?
This is only correct if the GUI works. Never had a Debian install where not at least one KDE setting was broken and needed to be fixed from GUI.
Also if you want to run things like team speak you can hardly escape the command line
Yes, entirely possible. I’ve been using Linux off and on since 2006 and full time as my daily driver since 2018ish. I’ve used Ubuntu, Fedora, Open Suse, Endeavour OS, Manjaro and various combos of those in that time. I barely use CLI, bar distro updates and a few basics. The fact that you need to use the CLI is a complete myth. I see a lot of responses stating “yeah, but why would you want to?” . That, frankly, is gatekeeping. I fully respect those who choose to use the CLI as a powerful tool, I understand their position. But if someone chooses not to, because they aren’t as used to it or just prefer to use a mouse to click around then yes it is possible, and they should be encouraged to run a Linux distro if they want to.
If I had read many of the responses below, back in 2006, I may not have tried Ubuntu when I did and may not be still using Linux to this day.
Yes.
Anyone who says differently is confusing “necessity” with “efficiency”.
When I first started in Linux I rarely used the command line at all. But as time went on and I became more familiar, I found that there were some things that were simply faster to do in the command line.
I can’t think of a single “everyday regular user task” than needs the command line, tbh.
You more succinctly, and respectfully, stated my thoughts than I did in my post :)
I think one of the issues, why there terminal is seen as necessity is, that there are almost no tutorials that refer to the gui. So if you’re a newbie and try to find out how something works like adding a third party repo to your package manager or making an install script executable, all you get is a command. You don’t get a “add this address to the list in the settings menu of your package manager, which you can find here”, for example.
Yes.
my first computer only had a command line
Yeah my daily driver for awhile has been Debian stable. All the normal day to day tasks can very easily be accomplished with only gui tools. My CLI stuff is more or less limited to ssh access to other machines and some light docker tinkering.
No
I use Linux for 20 years now. I almost never use the command lines nowadays. I’d say it is almost possible.
I use Mint and have yet to use the command line. I browse the web and play games on steam. All of this works right out of the box.
Totally agree…
I’ve been using mint for the last 4 years, and while I have had to use the command line for some obscure installs, it also works as an OS without needing to use it (i jumped in at the deep end and installed it in a pc I got from my brother and used it as my everyday OS)
I don’t understand why Mint isn’t the first suggestion for Linux ‘virgins’ switching over from Windows etc, it has everything you need pre installed plus the download manager for anything else
Linux has a flavour for everyone, and after a while when you’re confidence and skills grow there is the fun of using the command line and a bit of tinkering…or not, if you are happy with the ‘basics’
Exactly, it entirely depends on how you want to use your computer. If you install Mint because you just want a privacy respecting OS that supports your hardware? Then there’s no need to touch the CLI. You can experiment and try out the CLI at your own pace (if you want). I honestly cannot fathom the “if you don’t want to use the CLI you shouldn’t be using Linux” attitude that many of the responders here have. Isn’t the ultimate freedom of open source is to use the hardware how you would like to use it? So what if you spend 20 years on Linux and never touch the CLI?
Meanwhile, in Plasma:
Absolutely and has been the case for years…
Have no fear, the Penguin is friendly
with certain distros the answer is a resounding “yes” with some others it’s a “technically, yes” and with even others it’s “good luck!”
UAC-style sudo prompts are are one of the most common issues i can think of. It’s very poorly implemented in the distro i use.
Yes, absolutely. But I also wouldn’t want to. GUI tools have their issues sometimes. The command line is basically raw compute power.
You literally just doubled down on being one. Computers are here to serve people, NOT the other way around.
I’m done here.
What are you talking about?
Buddy, this is a linux post not a windows one
Doubled down on being what?
Are you trying to argue that anything written here is false? Can you prove it?
That is very true. Good point.
Even in 2024, many people begin using GNU/Linux with Arch Linux or Ubuntu with apt-get, then later they complain that Linux is not for average users. Maybe the community needs more GUI only tutorials.
You can definitely hammer a screw, but why would you?
Nowadays, pretty much yes. I more or less use the command line as much as I did on windows. Of course things like installing software via the repos is more efficient via the command line, but most GUI tools will work perfectly fine for most people.