In the long run it more often than not is better to show them how to help themselves though. Let’s say they use Mint and want to install something they saw from ElementaryOS, so a new Flatpak repo: Of course in this moment I’d be done faster with their request for help sending them two commands to just paste, but showing them where they can add the new repo themselves and how this will make all the new apps pop up in their Software Store doesn’t just make them more independent and reassure them in trying things themselves, but will make it less likely for them to constantly ask you for help again.

And it makes more people stick with Linux, that’s always good.

That’s just wrong, the correct commands are always different. E.g. for journalctl to keep following the newest entries you need -f, while in dmesg you need -w for the very same feature. That’s not any more “the same” than it is the “same” to move your mouse around a differently organized GUI.

Writing in the CLI is comparable with moving the mouse, and remembering the appropriate commands of the specific tool comparable to know where to click on. However a proper GUI is immediately visible to be interacted with (and not abstract like most CLI arguments) and will convey function through form, while the function in the CLI is hidden behind help texts and man pages.

I do like working with the CLI a lot, but what you said was simply wrong.

CLI requires remembering commands though, or developing patience with your up arrow key.

And if you want help, is it “/h” or “/?” or “-h” or “—help” or “—h” or just “help”

I can’t remember that I need to pee, let alone what commands do what, save for my up arrow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in the terminal constantly, but I’ll pick a GUI over CLI every time if it’s an option.

And a lot of desktop distros know how to suggest installation so if I type ip addr it might say do you want to "apt install iproute2"? or dnf or whatever I need to make it work regardless of distro.

But if I’m trying to use a GUI it’s harder to figure out how to make a GUI tool appear. What’s it’s package name on this distro? Should I be using Flatpak and if so where’s that? Etc. And this lack of assistance isn’t (just) bad design because I don’t know how you’d design a GUI where I can go “I want the NetworkInspector tool” and it just does the right thing.

A lot of devs don’t put much work into planning the flow of their GUI from a user’s perspective and it really shows.

IMHO a UI should offer everything a user can do in a given moment, readily available, nothing hidden behind more than a single menu. If something isn’t currently possible, it shouldn’t be available, and if the dev chooses to make the option visible but unavailable, it should be clearly and visibly marked as something that can be available (grayed out text for example).

I think devs tend to overestimate both the skill of the user, and the usefulness of their UI.

That’s when you go to alternativeto.net and get a different one. If you’re running into that problem then you just are using the wrong tools.

We’re talking about programs that are equally useful in both GUI and CLI, we’re not talking about libre office which is necessarily complex or a video editing program with a thousand transitions. Those are always going to be cryptic and always going to be GUI.

The problem with CLI is it can’t be made easier with a different interface.

Or pipe GUI output into another GUI function.

So you want newbies blindly entering scripts to there command line and not knowing what that are doing.

basic_task_list = ['copy and paste', 'install package', 'type', 'keyboard', 'read and write' ]

for basic_task in basic_task_list:
    print(f"""
        Newbies can't {basic_task}.
        They never {basic_task} in windows.
        Windows  has replaced {basic_task} with copilot, this is what linux needs to do to compete.

        How will linux ever hope to attract windows user if it still maintains this ancient hacker 1337xor tools like  {basic_task}?

        Users just want to turn on computer and watch it do computance - how does linux not get this?
    """)

Yep, this is just one factor. It’s difficult for people not to judge a book by its cover.

Correctly done, cli is superior for a lot of things.

I know what you mean, just beware: in lots of cases it’s not as universal (as in distro-independent) as some still think it is.

For people who want to get things done with their PC that isn’t inherently IT-related (like, doing office work or music production or anything else) and just need to do the occasional light sysadmin thing like setting up new drives to be auto-mounted somewhere, pointing to GUI tools is just so much better. And in many cases it is also safer (making your system fail on boot with a small typo in the fstab is painfully easy).

Also, GUI changes faster than CLI, CLI has ALWAYS more options, and you can save those commands to a file.

Also can get explanations for every command.

It’s not even that complex, it just looks that way if you’re not used to using it

otherwise you end up with windows

Windows without the garbage? I’m okay with that.

☝️ This guy operates systems.

“Join our Discord server!”

I think this is a space where the decline of online search is very apparent. This is really a challenge of finding the right information: e.g. finding the right wiki page or, more often than not, some one else explaining the practical use of what the wiki says in a way that you as a user can understand.