It’s not exactly a fair comparison, the tweaks in the bottom panel aren’t necessary for most users to do, yet a new user to Linux will need to get over a learning curve to do fairly basic tasks.
My litmus test for when Linux will be “ready” is can you do everything you need to do without using the terminal. So far I’ve yet to see a distribution that has achieved this.
I set up Linux Mint for my parents a few months ago. Never touched the terminal, everything was done in Mint’s UI; the initial installation, Timeshift setup, theme customizing, app installations for Spotify, OnlyOffice, VLC, and Chrome, automatic updates, printer and scanner setup.
What about Mint or PopOS? Also I don’t agree with your definition of “ready”. The stigma around the terminal must go!
the current state of linux on ANY popular distro is: everyting can be done via GUI but some things are just easier to do in the terminal and it’s not linux’s faulth that terminal is just so good
There’s no stigma with the terminal, the terminal isn’t bad, I love the terminal.
However, it’s not grandma friendly. It never will be. You need to think less about your preferences and more about a truly novice user. Most people don’t want to tinker with their machines, they just want it to work.
Manjaro has a pretty great out of the box experience, everything just works via the GUI, including software management (and even pulling packages from the Arch AUR repos).
I use the terminal out of preference, and because it’s where I’m comfortable, but I can’t think of any situation it’s actually needed for general desktop use.
That is impossible. It’s like saying for Windows “can you do everything that you can do in a GUI, in PS or cmd”. That can never come true because the OS was just never designed that way.
Likewise, in Linux or any other POSIX compatible OS, you can’t expect that. Everything UI related is designed to just be a wrapper around the shell. You can’t expect everything to be configurable through a UI when everything in that OS is designed to run in the terminal (a few exceptions, but generally, yes, this is true).
It’s not exactly a fair comparison, the tweaks in the bottom panel aren’t necessary for most users to do, yet a new user to Linux will need to get over a learning curve to do fairly basic tasks.
My litmus test for when Linux will be “ready” is can you do everything you need to do without using the terminal. So far I’ve yet to see a distribution that has achieved this.
The closest thing I’ve seen is SteamOS.
I set up Linux Mint for my parents a few months ago. Never touched the terminal, everything was done in Mint’s UI; the initial installation, Timeshift setup, theme customizing, app installations for Spotify, OnlyOffice, VLC, and Chrome, automatic updates, printer and scanner setup.
Butter smooth so far.
What about Mint or PopOS? Also I don’t agree with your definition of “ready”. The stigma around the terminal must go! the current state of linux on ANY popular distro is: everyting can be done via GUI but some things are just easier to do in the terminal and it’s not linux’s faulth that terminal is just so good
There’s no stigma with the terminal, the terminal isn’t bad, I love the terminal.
However, it’s not grandma friendly. It never will be. You need to think less about your preferences and more about a truly novice user. Most people don’t want to tinker with their machines, they just want it to work.
There are plenty of distros out there that fit that criteria, Mint, Manjaro, EndeavourOS. You can do everything a normal user would do from a GUI.
Manjaro has a pretty great out of the box experience, everything just works via the GUI, including software management (and even pulling packages from the Arch AUR repos).
I use the terminal out of preference, and because it’s where I’m comfortable, but I can’t think of any situation it’s actually needed for general desktop use.
That is impossible. It’s like saying for Windows “can you do everything that you can do in a GUI, in PS or cmd”. That can never come true because the OS was just never designed that way.
Likewise, in Linux or any other POSIX compatible OS, you can’t expect that. Everything UI related is designed to just be a wrapper around the shell. You can’t expect everything to be configurable through a UI when everything in that OS is designed to run in the terminal (a few exceptions, but generally, yes, this is true).