this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Couldn't disagree more. Having to learn how to use the command line to complete basic tasks is a huge learning curve.
what basic task have you run into that requires the command line? have you tried Mint? my 83 year old dad has been on mint for over a year with no complaints, and I don't think he even knows how to open the terminal . . .
I'm just not interested in rehashing this conversation. Anyone who has used Linux already knows, even if they won't admit it. Being dishonest about it isn't helping anyone. I used Windows for 30 years and never touched any kind of CLI in that time. I did use it on MacOS but only for Homebrew because there's no other GUI alternative.
OK, if your talking homebrew on Mac, then your not just doing "basic" things. yes, for power users on Linux, we need to use the CLI. For actual basic things (browsing, word processing, consuming media) you absolutely don't need to touch it at all on many "noob" distros.
So claiming that there's a steep learning curve for basic things is going to turn off new users, who would be perfectly fine never looking at a terminal to do what they need
Using homebrew on Mac is obviously not a "basic thing on Linux".
i think it heavily depends on the person's use case. if someone is doing web browsing and maybe making a couple word documents, the learning curve is negligible. also, you dont need to use BASH to do most things, it's 2026. most anything you can think of, you can do via GUI.
It doesn't matter what the usecase is if the Wifi or speakers or camera don't work. Or if all the icons and text are so small as to be nearly impossible to read.
That Is almost always a hardware compatibility issue, if you get a machine that is specifically meant for Linux, even the jankiest of distros will not have all but the last issue, and for the last one if fractional scaling is causing issues just double your scale.
LOL those are all like $2k
I don't think you understand what this is...
I'll give you that if you want it officially supported they tend to come with those price tags, although i did find this one which is officially supporting linux at the midrange price tag Laptop, I mainly mean that the individual components are supported which you could determine through a little bit of research, but generally speaking if you don't want to pay the premium, you should be prepared for a little bit of trouble shooting, but normally it is only for the webcam nowadays. Overall, I have changed the os on many of my laptops, and they have always either had no missing functionality after installation or had a forum that explained how to fix its issues that was a one and done fix.
Could you be more specific about what you mean? I don't think I claimed anything that would be out of the purview of fractional scaling.
I'm typing this message from a 16-year-old ThinkPad T410 running Linux flawlessly. cost 60CAD. any ThinkPad will run Linux like a dream, and the newer ones are like, $200-600 second-hand, depending on how fancy you want it to be.
We're discussing brand new dedicated Linux laptops and you want to bring up a 16 year old Windows computer? Yeah nah, you're just intentionally arguing in bad faith. Goodbye.
no shitdip, im emphasising how cheap shit can run linux. your "ohhh computer has to cost ten bajillion dollars to work good onlinux !1!1!!1" argument is dumb as fuck.
that still pertains to usercase. if a user has a thinkpad the whole shebang is gonna work ootb. if you cant research 'is my laptop compatible with [os]', stick to iphones.