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Linux or Landfill? End of Windows 10 Leaves PC Charities with Tough Choice
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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Lack of user-friendlylinesss ? What ? How much more user-friendly can we get ?
Most things are point & click
Is this a joke? The main way most Linux users install software is still via the command line.
On Windows the command line is an exceptional thing you sometimes have to use for troubleshooting. On Linux it's the default way everything is done.
For example how do you stop a service on Linux? The top answer just assumes command line.
If I search for how to do it with a GUI I get a 5 year old post explaining that all the GUI attempts are dead.
Now if I search for Windows, I get these instructions (from the AI but they sound like I remember it):
And the top SO question is someone asking specifically how to do it with the command line because the GUI way is so easy and obvious.
That's just one random example. Not even getting to hardware support, ease of installation, etc.
I reject the premise that the command line is not user friendly.
With either a GUI or a command line, the first step is going to be "Search the internet for the instructions."
The second step for the command line option is "ctrl-c, ctrl-v". The task is now complete.
The GUI option is only superior if it allows the user to skip the "Search for it" step. If it does not, now you are manually searching some arcane hierarchy for the specific location the developer decided to place that option.
There are two concepts in UI design that often pull in opposite directions. They are usability (the ability to do advanced stuff easily) and discoverability (the ability to find unfamiliar functions in the interface without resorting to the manual/the Internet).
Command lines are highly usable, but they're not very discoverable. Most people have been trained to want the reverse—discoverable, but often not very usable—and so the command line scares them. It's less a logical reaction than an emotional one, although not wanting to waste time on something they feel they shouldn't have to deal with does figure in.
Thing is, Windows' "everything is in the GUI" is an illusion. If you have to fix ailing Windows machines, or even just make one produce anything other than the default telemetry-infested user experience, sooner or later you're going to end up mucking around on the command line or in arcane undiscoverable interfaces that are an order of magnitude worse than anything Linux has ever produced. Give me a command line over
regeditany day. But most people outsource the repairs to their ailing Windows machines so that they don't have to touch this stuff themselves. For Average Joe, finding someone who will fix his ailing Linux box for him is more difficult, because they don't set up counters in the big-box stores that most people buy their computers from.