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0 pointsanal_reactor2mo ago0 comments

Linux just isn't friendly to newcomers.

1. Lots of rough edges "yeah it almost works if you tweak it a little" yeah thank you but no.

2. CLI is better for doing the thing you want, but GUI is better for discovering what options you have in the first place. The fact that GUI is an afterthought on Linux says a lot.

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applfanboysbgon2mo ago

Not only is GUI better for discovery, it's not even always true that CLI is better for doing the thing you want. Depending on the complexity of the task, building a tower of CLI commands/arguments can be a pain, and if it's something you do ~once a month, good luck remembering the syntax. A GUI lets you not even have to think about it, not have to memorise syntax or go out of your way to write a script to save it. And while CLI is great for things you do routinely... Windows still offers great CLI support, so you simply get the best of both worlds.

alright25652mo ago

We're in the age of LLMs and this is exactly what they shine at. Just the other day I got tired of Libre office having some crappy custom file picker.

"Claude, change the libre office file picker to the system default"

"Beep boop it is done"

Linux has a big leg up over windows in this regard because all the GUIs are essentially wrappers around CLIs and text files that LLMs can deal with quite well.

pdonis2mo ago

> A GUI lets you not even have to think about it, not have to memorise syntax or go out of your way to write a script to save it.

Unless the GUI buries what you want to do in five or six levels of menus and options--and then changes where they're buried in the next release, so you have to re-learn everything all over again. That's happened to me with work computers more times than I care to remember.

By contrast, my collection of shell scripts on my home Linux computers is still serving me well after more than twenty years.

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