this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2023
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Memes

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[–] Haunting_Tale_5150@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

When I was using linux, I used linux mint. There were some things I did need terminal for, but there's a surprising amount of things that allow you to use a simple gui.

Getting people used to linux with mint or a similar distro that allows clicky things is probably the best way to go imo.

[–] OofShoot@beehaw.org 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

What's the best "I don't want to learn anything" distro?

[–] jeta@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 years ago

Linux mint I guess. As from my experience, it have almost everything needed by a regular user:

  • Great application center with flatpak and Flathub enabled out of the box, which already covers almost every application needed by a regular user
  • Graphical driver installer
  • Ability to install apt packages without terminal
  • Good pack of preinstalled applications - it's already possible to do almost everything regular user needs, like browsing the web, working with office documents, reading PDF files and so on
  • Driverless printer support out of the box

Also it looks awesome out of the box (especially after recent redesign), and works fine even on not so capable hardware

The only thing I don't really like about it is it being based on LTS release of ubuntu, which may lead to some problems on newer hardware. Still can be fixed by installing mainline kernel and adding ppa repositories, but it's not really easy to do without using terminal

[–] Haunting_Tale_5150@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Probably linux mint, but every distro will lead to some googling. However mint makes it very easy to just set and forget.

[–] AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

but every distro will lead to some googling

This is really important to know going into any new tech platform. You will need to search things up, this is true even on something like iOS where they spend billions of dollars on making everything as intuitive as possible.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

I'll give a +1 for Mint and Pop_OS!, especially Mint (Cinnamon edition) for people who don't want to learn a new layout either.

[–] Doomguy@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago

Probably POP_OS to my understanding, I haven't used it much myself but I hear good things in terms of a "Just works" distro.

[–] depreciated_cost@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yeah the question is never going to be

How to do with GUI?

It's rather going to be

why on earth would I do that when I can just click some buttons on windows?

or

Can't we just use settings menu?

[–] xethos@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

Can’t we just use settings menu?

Which one? I heard Microsoft's up to three now

[–] ozoned@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Friends don't let friends GUI. ;-)

[–] Doomguy@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

GUI more like ewwie

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I open it up and see beautiful moving colours! hohahaha! and everything feeeels sloower

[–] zwekihoyy@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

a gui is legitimately slower in most contexts. I will never understand why people feel like they need one so bad.

edit: spelling mistakes.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Hmm, now that I think about it, I want to say a GUI provides a (potentially false) sense of security.

At the very least, it gives an intuitive sense of direction, so that you can use a program with very little understanding of it. Things like Handbrake over ffmpeg I'd prefer over having to look up how to do 2-pass conversions online every time I want to make one.

[–] scrchngwsl@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

The menus tell you all of the things it can do in a relatively intuitive way. It's easier and quicker to get started than reading the help/man page and remembering commands. Much shallower learning curve -- but of course, a much lower ceiling on what you can do as your proficiency grows.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's me with Git. If my colleagues need help and they're on the CLI, I can just literally spell them out everything they need. But if they're using some sort of Git GUI, it's always like, WTF are all these buttons? Are you sure, Git even has that many features? How do I tell it to do XYZ with certain flags? Are you sure, this isn't missing some Git features?

[–] Adda@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

This is myself with my colleagues. I use Lazygit and GitUI daily, otherwise I would spend a lifetime typing out numerous Git commands every day. And it is amazing how much one can do and how fast with these TUIs. But if a colleague needs something, and of course, they do not have these programs, all I can is just shrug and point them to the internet, as I have already forgotten all the little flags and parameters for more advanced commands. It is incredible how easy these TUIs make Git to use.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Well, cool that it works for you, but that is kind of why I stay away from the GUIs, too: I do not want to forget how the CLI works. Or even just become less comfortable in it.

When you need to look anything up about Git, you get told commands, and I need to mess with Git repos on remote servers every now and then.
Also, even if I can't help colleagues in their GUI, they generally have the CLI somewhere.

I do use a shell with type-ahead suggestions to alleviate the typing somewhat.

[–] Rentlar@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly terminal commands are like a picky voice assistant that you talk to via keyboard... you tell the computer to do something and it just does it, or it fusses at you that you screwed up something.

Clicking stuff ends up being the slower way once you know what you are doing...

Real command-line users only need two keys, enter and up

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

At some point, I realize that I'm furiously clicking the up arrow twenty times just to reenter a command that was two words long anyway and far quicker to type out. Not even CTRL+R would make it more efferent than typing.

[–] xethos@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Even with mid-command matching, like "ctrl+r Doc" for "cd Documents"? Just in case not everyone has found that you don't have to match from the beginning of the string you're looking for.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

I seriously think it was something like git add

I was probably beyond tired.

[–] litanys@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

What!? You have forever changed my life. Teach me more sensei.

[–] jakobmn 5 points 2 years ago

While I love using a terminal, there are certainly things that I prefer a TUI or a GUI for. But they should be navigable using the keyboard. I can move files around much faster using Total Commander or Midnight Commander rather than using the terminal.

[–] bzlcos@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Unfortunately people will never use anything that requires cli usage for basic operations en masse which kinda hinders significant adoption of Linux

[–] Lobstronomosity@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Basically me whenever I try to use Linux on a permanent basis. What's that, you want to run a program at boot? You'll have to do it all in CLI and there's a pretty high chance you'll brick the OS. Oh, and don't make any spelling mistakes!

[–] NoNatNovember@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not sure which distro you were using, but most have an autostart gui option and you would have to make some serious spelling mistakes to brick your system.

[–] Lobstronomosity@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In this case, Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi. I was trying to set up a script that would connect to a network storage device automatically. There's not a simple way to do it, you have to go about it in a hacky way.

[–] mishugashu@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Does it not use systemd? Sounds like a pretty easy systemd init script that waits on network.

[–] xethos@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Hell, that could just be an fstab entry

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago

People say Linux is complicated while you can literally just run one script and have everything setup.

[–] csolisr@social.azkware.net 2 points 2 years ago

@Doomguy @memes

Step 1: you write a nice wrapper in Zenity or something

[–] cavemeat@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Mood, I love the terminal

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