The big advantage of this is that you can take your local config files and take it to other system. Can you do that with the Windows registry? Ironically, the only way to port settings in Windows is to have a .reg script and execute it, the thing you critisize.

And the Windows registry might be a single centralized config file, but config values are scattered through all the tree, and usually undocumented. E.g. this is a commonly recomended tweak:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "UserPreferencesMask"=hex(2):90,12,03,80,10,00,00,00

Can you tell what it does?

I would love a configuration system with centralized database and centralized documentation, but no OS currently seems to be able to achieve that, and Windows' missing documentation appears even worse than obscure but documented config files.

With Windows you have to patch it through the registry (which is not bsckupable config files) to remove ads and other annoying "features".

So the out-of-the-box experience is better with Linux. My mom even understands Linux GUIs better these days than Windows, it's just less bloat and distraction. And for basic apps you don't have to configure anything on the CLI. I recently got a Raspberry PI for my parents to use as a HTPC, installed some basic apps on it, and they can just use it like that.

Registry hacking, with all it's resets and duplicate keys is hard to backup, constantly reverts ( because m$ doesn't believe it to be user editable) and is a pain in the ass to back up and restore.

Oh yes, and is your registry value supposed to be a dword, or something else? No way to tell.

I am not sure why this is. My best guess is it unpleasant to use because now you have two trees. only one has all the nice tooling and the other is sort of second class and can only be accessed via special mechanisms.

The good thing is that explanations is often a `man` command away, and the location of these files is often listed in the same place. Also general computing is an expert subject. You may as well have a kiosk if you start hiding away capabilities. The expectation to drop to a terminal is often because the terminal is the fastest way to get things done.

Back around 2003 I read in local "Linux Magazine" about some project that tried bringing kind of a registry equivalent to Linux world. Sadly these were Internet caffee times so it was hard to track projects, so I really don't know what happen to it. The closest thing that resembles that idea is dconf.

With Windows nowadays you do all this tweaking or juggling within registry/group policy editor to protect yourself (and of course you do that if you care - majority of people don't) while with Linux I'd say it's more a matter of fine-tuning your distro of choice to your needs.

What config files have you found outside of `/etc` and `~/.config`?

…most of which are backed by a man file. I’ll take that over the registry any day.

Now too, for normal computer users who don't want to tweak their operating system and only need basic utilities, and are able to read and follow simple instructions, Linux has long become way more accessible than Windows.

To be frank, I think the only battle-tested reliable ways to make a config language or a set of command line flags easier to use is good, complete documentation, though little things like integration with tab-completion or syntax highlighting can often go a long way too. These exist in almost any commonly used software found on a linux distro and are more than enough for someone willing to actually try stuff, which describes most of the people who can navigate doing anything that's not a default behavior of any OS anyway. Most people seem to have what I can only describe as learned helplessness about computers doing things they don't expect, but to be honest if you put people in an environment where they are motivated and don't feel afraid to mess up (which most educational contexts fail miserably at, both in terms of social norms and systemic incentives), most will actually start to figure stuff out a lot quicker than they expect themselves to. A small portion won't, and unfortunately most social environments are either too rushed or too high-pressure to facilitate this kind of exploration. But if we just accept that people are "non-technical" in the sense of "can't try anything remotely new in order to fix their computer", the only real way to satisfy those users is going to be keeping a system they already know how to use the same, which companies are simply not willing to do

To me, the main difference between open (like linux distros, but there are others) and closed computer operating systems is that the former tends not to tell you "Sit tight and we'll send a company-certified adult to help you" (or sometimes "This is not allowed", or "You need to pay extra for that now"), and the latter, increasingly, wherever possible, makes these the only options available

Same as chrome with flags.

Good UX means nowadays eat or die.