Point-and-Click Linux Distro for CLI-haters?

[TorC]

MassOS is waiting approval by DistroWatch and is readily available at GitHub.  Some Screenshots are attached 

 

 

[Lightwreather]

For the Record, there are a couple other distros that do this, most notably OpenSUSE and Mint.

[Knightxl]

Pop_OS! does this quite well too.

[Nayr438]

I dont see anything special here. Its just another new Distro that is hopping on the "containerized" packages train. You could hop over to Fedora and get a similiar experience.

 

With the rise of things like Flatpak, new distro's make even less sense than they did before. You chose a distro because of Versioning, Dependency Management, and available packages. If every distro is using the same packages then none of that matters. So essentially it just drops us down to what default base config do we want, something already largely covered by tbe mainstream distro options already available.

[Sauron]

almost every major distro has a graphical package manager...

[Dat Guy]

I wonder why you even consider using a Unix-like system if you don't want to use the CLI. All is well with a GUI - until it isn't and something breaks.

If you can't stand the command line, stay away from Linux, Unix and (non-macOS) BSD. You wouldn't be happy.

YMMV.

[TorC]

THANK YOU, all the above.  I wanted to see the response to where GNU/Linux distros are heading.  

It helps me get up to speed on present users opinions on my favorite OS.  In particular, the necessity of the CLI.

 

Personally, I agree with @Dat Guyregarding command line usage.  But things are changing. 

@Nayr438-- +1 on the homogenization of Linux via thing like Flatpack!

So far, it is about a 2:5 ratio For:Against the necessity of using the CLI.

 

Interesting!

[Alexeygridnev1993]

One thing that I hate about most GUI apps in Linux is that, if something goes wrong, they just silently fail instead of spitting out a proper error message in a popup window (like most Windows apps do). Then you have to use CLI anyway to troubleshoot. So I don't even bother with GUI tools for this reason.

[CodeAsm]

I use Arch and Linux from scratch, so my opinion doesnt matter so much for CLI haters (newbies) and GUI lovers.

What i do wanna note, (flatpack and ease of use without touching cli might be a blessing) changes in UI after updates, without notifying or changing the looks of certain elements are a pain. I got custom themes going on some systems, and when some apps update, they change the looks and now it all looks ugly.

If the CLI is so scary, why dont these GUI distro make a CLI helper? add some autocompletion and in app command help? like, when you type, like in code editors (IDE), some popup with small bit of information what this command will do, a few commenly used arguments and maybe a clickable link to a page with more information?

Everyone is making easier packages, more (different) package managers, but the CLI still seems to be scary. why not protect and help the user getting a fell for it? (make it less scary by adding a theme, white background, easy font, no scary access to /root (not immediately).

[Lightwreather]

1 hour ago, CodeAsm said:

add some autocompletion and in app command help?

Those actually do exist ftr,

Autocompletetion is standard in one shell (I forget the name). and is available through extentions for others.

As for the latter, most commands will have a -h, -help, --help flag for quick help and ofc there's always "man x" where x is the command for a more detailed list.

But these should probably be more user accessible.

1 hour ago, CodeAsm said:

(make it less scary by adding a theme, white background, easy font, no scary access to /root (not immediately).

ps. this is pretty standard, and is the default (on light mode) on macOS. With exception to font but that is available in the preferencs menu of the terminal

[maplepants]

This is really ugly. I love a good GUI, but this isn't my style.

 

What's the sales pitch for this UI instead of Ubuntu and normal Gnome or more custom looks like Mint or Elementary?

[CodeAsm]

8 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

-h, -help, --help flag for quick help and ofc there's always "man x" where x is the command for a more detailed list.

Yes, those are actually very handy to have arround. the man pages where a bit of a learning curve for me back a few years ago (how to read them, where are examples, what do those numbers mean. old style organization we wont change) Maybe some popup that sources the man pages?

8 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

default (on light mode) on macOS.

Dint want to mention macos emediatly but their white terminal felt a lot more beginner friendly. (weird me enjoyed their FORTH bootloader language aswell)