The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Side of Linux - Linux Challenge PT. 2

[SirShanova]

2 hours ago, Lurking said:

You could use the on-screen keyboard to use CLI. How else do you show off your superiority?  

How do you enjoy a phone if you can't use gate-keeping tools and more than 3% of the users can use it? 

Hey, I use a-shell mini and iSH on iOS and it’s actually pretty useful

 

Would never ever ever recommend it to anyone I know in person, though 

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

1 hour ago, Bramimond said:

Merely having people switch over to Linux and use it like Windows doesn't make me happy. I was fine using Linux 25 years ago when it meant a lot more sacrifice than today. What makes me happy about more people using Linux is the chance for them to take stewardship over their tech life. If they don't want to, I don't mind if they use Windows or Mac. These are viable options if you don't mind bending over every now and then and taking it up the rectum because someone else knows better how you should use your computer.

 

I just want to clarify that we do not use the CLI to gatekeep. We use it because it is easier, faster and more powerful.

For someone who doesn't want to use CLI to gatekeep, it does come across a lot like that. 

 

I don't see using a GUI focused OS as an opposite to taking stewardship over your tech life. Using a CLI comfortably is not an indicator for that, I'm afraid. If anything, this should not be a tradeoff: Convenience and ease-of-use should not be the opposite of control and ownership, that is a dichotomy that is very unhelpful and that I see often pushed by the open-source community when asked about QOL or ease of use features.

 

1 hour ago, Bramimond said:

And that's before we talk about chaining tools and automating workflows, which is basically impossible to do with a GUI.

 

GUIs are great for certain things, but  most things I do on my PC the CLI does a better job.

 

I agree on that, I do use CLI for quite a lot of things at work. Piping commands and outputs is one reason, another is that the main software from a scientific vendor we use offers a GUI with a build-in command line. And there is actually one of the main occasions where I see new people struggle with the concept. For me what I want to do just flies from my fingertips, for new people it is far easier to remember where the button was and what it looked like.

 

1 hour ago, Bramimond said:

I have to use Windows for work and what I found is that the bastards keep changing the GUI around, so every couple of years you have to learn many things again. Meanwhile, what I learned about the CLI has stayed with me for life

The enshitification of MS is undeniable, just recently they changed the default shortcuts for super and subscript in their office products. For someone working in chemistry, this sucked...

 

But having had to work with various flavors of Linux over some years (scientific instrument BS) I can tell you that CLI also sometimes just change or deprecate commands. Not nearly as often and usually with a fallback, but having to remember what the various services etc. were called across Redhat, CentOS, Ubuntu etc. was really annoying to me.

[SirShanova]

1 minute ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

I can tell you that CLI also sometimes just change or deprecate commands. Not nearly as often and usually with a fallback, but having to remember what the various services etc. were called across Redhat, CentOS, Ubuntu etc. was really annoying to me.

Would you like to use:

• dnf
• apt
• pacman
• zypper
• flatpak
• snap

today?

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

28 minutes ago, Sho2048 said:

If you have a permission issue the GUI or the CLI will tell you and probably also tell you about either the command or the GUI to change that. Discoverability is better on the GUI, of course. No one said the contrary.

I understood from @Bramimond comments that the two are supposedly on a similar level, was I wrong? 

 

30 minutes ago, Sho2048 said:

I never said it should be the default.

Yet it appears you push a lot against the idea that a GUI should be able to do everything a command line can do. If the GUI can't do relatively basic tasks (I believe we got to this via the whole mounting drives issue), then can it really be considered the default?

 

And while you might not say that it should be the default, a ton of Linux advice/troubleshooting is simply given as terminal commands....by default. I understand the reasons why (better transferability across versions/distros, easier to communicate), but a lot of the lived reality of getting into linux further than installing and opening a browser inevitably defaults to the command line.

[Sho2048]

53 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

Yet it appears you push a lot against the idea that a GUI should be able to do everything a command line can do. If the GUI can't do relatively basic tasks (I believe we got to this via the whole mounting drives issue), then can it really be considered the default?

 

You are entirely conjuring arguments. My very single argument is that CLI has commands and integrated help if you don't have internet, plus some baked in hints. That's it. It's the entirety of my argument. There's nothing else I wanted to argue other than the fact that the CLI can be used without internet or AI by reading the integrated man command.

 

I made no considerations whatsoever about the GUI. I even run Bazzite and KDE on my gaming desktop, which up to now required me no CLI commands to do anything, and not Arch as I've been accused. 

 

Yeah, not even to mount disks. And I know I can do advanced stuff from the GUI for that too.
 

I do use CLI commands on Mac, but those are developer tools, same on Windows and Linux. I don't think there's a GUI for ngrok or pnpm, though.

 

53 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

And while you might not say that it should be the default, a ton of Linux advice/troubleshooting is simply given as terminal commands....by default. I understand the reasons why (better transferability across versions/distros, easier to communicate), but a lot of the lived reality of getting into linux further than installing and opening a browser inevitably defaults to the command line.

My name isn't Linux Community, and my experience in 2026 is not to default to the command line, not even when installing Bazzite. I cannot argue for the Linux Community because I'm not part of any community, I am a random person on the internet.

 

53 minutes ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

I understood from @Bramimond comments that the two are supposedly on a similar level, was I wrong? 

You can describe user interfaces on different levels. There are reasons and qualities to each one of them, plus you can't just compare two paradigms when the paradigms can be implemented in so many different ways and different quality standards.

 

I refuse to say whether CLI or GUI are better than one another. It's just that the GUI has a better affordance.

 

But affordance isn't everything. iMovie has a better affordance than Final Cut, but is it *better*?

[Bramimond]

8 hours ago, LinuxTamingTrips said:

GMIP starts up in no time (2 seconds) on Linux and is taking 30s on Windows, just to load in all tools (with strong gaming PC!). Yes GIMP is an extreme example, but Linux is snappier for GUI apps.

Gimp takes longer than one second just to start. Everything slower than zero point four seconds is too slow. ImageMagick is better at some editing tasks I regularly do and takes less time.

 

  

6 hours ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

Convenience and ease-of-use should not be the opposite of control and ownership

I don't understand, the CLI is convenient and easy to use. Just like typing with ten fingers is more convenient and easier than having to scan the keyboard with your eyes to find the correct keys. It's just that you have to initially put in some effort to learn. 

 

What I'm trying to say is that the Windows way is fairly patronizing and if you use Linux just like Windows that doesn't really change too much. It still changes some things, of course. But to really arrive in the Linux world requires a change of mindset. And quite often this change of mindset is accompanied by tending to prefer the CLI. 

  

6 hours ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

for new people it is far easier to remember where the button was and what it looked like.

Searching keys on your keyboard is easier (if you don't know how to touch type) than typing blindly, but not learning to touch type is still handicapping yourself long term. It's not required to touch type, obviously. Just like the CLI is not required. But it makes things easier. 

 

 

[Lurking]

[LinuxTamingTrips]

45 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

Gimp takes longer than one second just to start. Everything slower than zero point four seconds is too slow. ImageMagick is better at some editing tasks I regularly do and takes less time.

The 400ms thing is also explained as "if there is something to load, show something to keep attention (loading cycle etc)", which GIMP does (loading-screen where it shows which tools it loads). So it does not prove your point, but the point that GIMP does a great job.  However, I just tried to start different applications and most of them taking less time than a second. GIMP is indeed one of the slowest.

 

Since I flashed my phone with Mobian few days ago and ImageMagick was preinstalled, I wanted to try it. Hmm, what should I say? It crashes while GIMP is running. Bad luck. I consider it as unsupported environment, so blame me, nothing else.

[Lurking]

15 minutes ago, LinuxTamingTrips said:

Since I flashed my phone with Mobian few days ago and ImageMagick was preinstalled, I wanted to try it. Hmm, what should I say? It crashes while GIMP is running. Bad luck. I consider it as unsupported environment, so blame me, nothing else.

Try Photopea. I don't know about phones, but it is browser-based and therefore (theoretically) independent of OS. It also used PSD file format (I have zero idea if it is PS compatible IRL). 

 

This is subjective, but it seems nicer than Gimp.

[LinuxTamingTrips]

It is just an ARM64 Debian system with little touchscreen. The issue comes probably from Open GL ES. I just remembered I saw the desktop file, so I tried to start it as lowest hanging fruit. Could also have tried to install and run it on desktop, but not now. 

 

I don't care much for photo-improvements, but about free software and some key features as easy and fast channel editing (using on desktop). Krita does a better job here, but still not that convenient as I want it. For the rest GIMP is good enough to me or I have good enough alternatives.

[masked]

On 5/13/2026 at 5:49 AM, Bramimond said:

Something completely unaddressed in these videos so far is that Linux isn't just a different operating system. It's a different way of life. You can of course use Linux like if it was Windows. With pretty GUIs and whatever. You can escape the horrors of Windows that way, sure. But then it will always feel a bit weird. Unfinished, even. Or maybe nowadays someone ironed out these issues already. Who knows. I just go by what people switching to Linux tend to report, as I never really used the GUI.

 

I've been using Linux for the past few years and I'm really not suffering from limited use of the terminal. I'd probably be particularly annoyed with the OS if it felt incomplete in day to day use without opening the terminal because that would be a sign of a badly designed GUI. Now to be fair-ish, I don't completely avoid the Terminal. There are use cases where I prefer it but I spend a solid 95% or better of my time in GUI. I'd spend a similar amount of time in GUI vs terminal on Windows when I still used Windows. I might actually spend more time in CLI if I forced myself to use Win 11 right now because parts of the Windows GUI distinctly piss me off (creating a user account in Windows GUI is stupidly over complicated vs using Terminal) and that doesn't happen as often in Linux.

[Aeternalis]

14 hours ago, LinuxTamingTrips said:

 

 

About package size: I am developing an application that is 650+MB via Flatpak, 3MB via Git-download and to make the Git-download work I required to install 80MB of system packages (which maybe also other applications are using later). Just to give an idea what it means if you have to install all packages for every single app. This may does not matters on systems with terabytes of storage, but my Linuxphone has 32GB in total (media files are stored on SD). At the end these are trade-offs - people cannot have all together.

 

 

The space concerns for flatpaks are completely invalid. Flatpaks that have shared dependencies will not have to download them individually - the packaging format that does that is snaps. This isn't 2005 anymore, any computer that anyone is going to be practically using in current year isn't going to cry over a couple hundred MB at most.  We literally live in a world where people tolerate Call of Duty taking up nearly half a TB in some cases, and you wanna worry about megabytes?

 

Linux Phones might be a place where this is a problem, but I'd rather be concerned with places where there's an actual userbase. Hit me up again about this in 10 years when linux phones are practical. Right now they're a curiosity for enthusiasts with cash enough for an extra phone.

[LinuxTamingTrips]

4 hours ago, Aeternalis said:

any computer that anyone is going to be practically using in current year isn't going to cry over a couple hundred MB at most

It is not a couple of hundred MB, but some GB, because my example was about a single app, not a whole system. Just scale it up. But that was a side node, no "crying". I am totally fine with the space I have (on desktop and on phone), it was just an example where the meaning becomes more visible. But I am not everyone and you neither. There are peoples running 15 years old computers that are working totally fine for them. At the point we start doing the same nonsense as proprietary software companies wasting resources, we just show a middle finger to those people. I'm not saying Flatpaks are doing so, it was more an overall hint right now. At the end of my Win10 days I was fighting with every single GB on my C: drive (which was 500GB while all games where on D:) for around a year or two.

 

4 hours ago, Aeternalis said:

Linux Phones might be a place where this is a problem, but I'd rather be concerned with places where there's an actual userbase. Hit me up again about this in 10 years when linux phones are practical. Right now they're a curiosity for enthusiasts with cash enough for an extra phone.

Linux phones ARE practical. I don't even own any other phones, because it does everything I need (unlike Android in my case). My bank also does not put a collar around my neck, forcing me to use their app for online banking. Not everyone is expecting to use a smartphone and all I expected was a laptop-replacement that also can do phone stuff. Yes it is for enthusiasts, but a curiosity? We are no longer in the 2010s ...

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

9 hours ago, Bramimond said:

 

16 hours ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

Convenience and ease-of-use should not be the opposite of control and ownership

I don't understand, the CLI is convenient and easy to use. Just like typing with ten fingers is more convenient and easier than having to scan the keyboard with your eyes to find the correct keys. It's just that you have to initially put in some effort to learn. 

 

What I'm trying to say is that the Windows way is fairly patronizing and if you use Linux just like Windows that doesn't really change too much. It still changes some things, of course. But to really arrive in the Linux world requires a change of mindset. And quite often this change of mindset is accompanied by tending to prefer the CLI. 

Yeah, I can see you don't understand.

A CLI is convenient and easy to use when you already know how to use it. Learning a CLI is not.

 

People switching to Linux not only are expected to learn a new OS (fair), but also to rethink how they interact with their PC. People just want to do their work and watch funny videos on their devices without their data stolen or getting plastered with ads. 

[Potatoes__]

On topic of CLI, not to add to the ongoing argument and just joking, but I recon I saw a thread lately with a "fairly common" malware infection vector where a fake captcha widget instructed clueless users to run powershell commands. If a sneaky pseudo-captcha on a naked people website can instruct users with low level of tech knowledge to do things in CLI then proper documentation and decent LLMs can do the same for Linux first timers 

 

From my perspective as someone daily driving Linux for 1.5 year and no programming knowledge or whatever, using CLI commands for more than a copy-paste from github was a super rare occurrence, and even copypasting stuff was mostly for some edge-cases where I needed to install software not present on Flathub or Fedora repos. I really can't say that terminal usage was a significant annoyance or a blocker in any way, certainly not bigger than the general learning curve of learning the new OS/DE experience.

 

In other more positive news - seems like a recent kernel update broke the compatibility with my specific bluetooth controller. One day later and we have a fresh kernel update that fixed it. How cool is that? When something so specific borked out on windows I straight up just accepted my fate.

[Aeternalis]

10 hours ago, Potatoes__ said:

 

 

In other more positive news - seems like a recent kernel update broke the compatibility with my specific bluetooth controller. One day later and we have a fresh kernel update that fixed it. How cool is that? When something so specific borked out on windows I straight up just accepted my fate.

I had experiences with this. It was especially bad when microsoft answers was a thing.

 

Look up windows issue, the first 10 results were microsoft answers where a microsoft-sanctioned turboposter told the person with the issue to update their drivers, reboot, and then locked the thread so that no useful help could be posted by someone else. In the rare case a thread wasn't locked, it was one of those worthless answers along with 100 other "same issue here" posts. I'm getting angry even remembering this nonsense.

 

I had an issue where my PC would sporadically partially lock up. Saw an issue in event viewer that lined up with the issue, and literally nothing helped fix it. Nothing at all. I tried 5-6 different ways to get help and nothing worked when I did get an answer. The problem eventually randomly went away.

 

I never have these issues on linux. Either I'll find an answer that works for solving my problem, or the thing I want to do will simply not work at all. Majority of my experience is the former. People like to talk about how the linux community can be toxic, but hell, at least there is a community to speak of where you have a chance at finding a real solution to your problem.

 

 

[Bramimond]

On 5/16/2026 at 10:09 AM, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

A CLI is convenient and easy to use when you already know how to use it. Learning a CLI is not.

Yes, just like touch typing. 

 

You can use a computer - even a Linux computer - completely fine without knowing how to touch type. And you can also use it completely fine without using the CLI more often than on Windows. 

 

What I am trying to convey is that we do not use and advocate for the CLI out of elitism and to gatekeep, we do it because it is easier, faster and more powerful. You just have to put in the work once. Just like with any other skill that makes your life easier down the line. Like learning how to swim or to ride a bicycle or to drive a car.

 

On 5/16/2026 at 10:09 AM, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

People just want to do their work and watch funny videos on their devices without their data stolen or getting plastered with ads. 

There is no hassle-free solution to this problem. Though, like I said many times already, you do not need to learn the CLI to use Linux like Windows. Just like you don't need to learn touch typing to use a computer. You also don't need to learn how to swim, ride a bicycle or drive a car. Your choice. 

 

I'm just saying that the CLI is more convenient in most cases and that touch typing is more convenient. 

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

2 hours ago, Bramimond said:

What I am trying to convey is that we do not use and advocate for the CLI out of elitism and to gatekeep, we do it because it is easier, faster and more powerful. You just have to put in the work once.

You might not intend to gatekeep, and I believe you there 100%, but what I am trying to convey is that (unintentionally) people do.

Yes, you can do a ton of stuff in Linux without CLI simply in GUI.

However, whenever I google things like "how to mount a network drive in ubuntu" the vast majority of guides, reddit posts and ubuntu forum posts are CLI. I understand why, I get it. You have to realize though, you just added another "must be this tall to ride" stage for new people. Maybe without realizing it, but it is there.

 

Being convenient for the expert user is nice, but we still don't remove all the legends from keycaps by default, do we?

[SirShanova]

3 hours ago, Bramimond said:

What I am trying to convey is that we do not use and advocate for the CLI out of elitism and to gatekeep, we do it because it is easier, faster and more powerful. You just have to put in the work once. Just like with any other skill that makes your life easier down the line.

But the majority of the world’s population (and therefore, computer users) don’t WANT to have to put in the work at all. Heck, even among the tech savvy, when Linux finally started focusing on “just working” in the late 2000s, more people started to adopt it.
 

For those who remember the time before Linux 2.6.24 in the late-2000s, Wi-Fi drivers were a near-impossible nightmare. Linux had gradually chipped away at how long users need to spend in the CLI and as a result have seen their market adoption rise. If you needed to use ndiswrapper on the Steam Deck, then it would be a niche product no one would use.

 

Whether the tech community realizes it or not, computers are appliances for most. I’ve never needed to read my dishwasher manual, I just put the dishes in it and it becomes clean. I’ve never opened a TV manual, I can power it on the OSD (which is a GUI) presents to me every setting I need.

[Bramimond]

21 hours ago, GarlicDeliverySystem said:

you just added another "must be this tall to ride" stage for new people.

You can't influence your height. You can decide to learn a new skill. 

The CLI isn't as complicated as its reputation makes it seem.

 

I feel that people mostly have a mental block to this whole thing. They just think that it's something impossible for them, so they don't even try. 

 

21 hours ago, SirShanova said:

But the majority of the world’s population (and therefore, computer users) don’t WANT to have to put in the work at all.

No one is forcing you at gunpoint. I keep repeating myself, but you do have a choice in this matter. I don't understand why people direct the frustration from their (or others) unwillingness to learn a new skill at random people that use Linux, like myself. 

[HorseBattery]

On 5/18/2026 at 4:13 PM, Bramimond said:

I don't understand why people direct the frustration from their (or others) unwillingness to learn a new skill at random people that use Linux, like myself.

As other people have said, it doesn't have to be that way. Ordinary people can use Windows (and macOS, iOS, Android etc) without using the command line, but powershell etc is still there for advanced users. The same is possible for Linux. You can have your cake and eat it too.

 

On 5/17/2026 at 6:38 PM, SirShanova said:

Whether the tech community realizes it or not, computers are appliances for most. I’ve never needed to read my dishwasher manual, I just put the dishes in it and it becomes clean. I’ve never opened a TV manual, I can power it on the OSD (which is a GUI) presents to me every setting I need.

Exactly this. Normal users should be able to do basically everything they need without having to use the CLI.

[Bramimond]

11 hours ago, HorseBattery said:

The same is possible for Linux. You can have your cake and eat it too.

Which is what I've been saying this entire time?

 

Recommending the CLI is like recommending to get fit and eat healthy. You don't have to, obviously. 

 

But I wouldn't like it if the gym became a place for obese people to eat potato chips, so to speak. Not even if that meant gym membership going up.

[razz3r]

After pt.1 of this I also tried again to go with Linux, namely - Bazzite.
And I can say - THANK YOU!)

I booted into Win only once since installation to grab some VPN configs. After that - long forgotten and can go to hell)
Yes, there are some quirks here and there from time to time, but I didn't expect it to move that far since my last attempt 2y ago.

If you're up to fiddle with configs and whatnot - almost everything can run. Though - had to move on from Fusion 360, I did finally run it but performance sucks.

For games - brilliant, except a couple EAC-heavy titles like BF2, PUBG and so on. Devs could enable Proton support, but they won't.
Ran over 2 dozens titles including heavy latest stuff like Pragmata, Stalker 2 and StarRupture. Latter 2 even run a bit better than on Windows (Pragmata was bought after transition). Some titles run significantly faster. WoT goes at whopping 30 fps more at same settings)

Oh, and that NTFS problem of Luke's - Bazzite unlike Cachy does warn you about NTFS being not the best option performance-wise.
Instead, there's a good solution - ntfs2btrfs, it essentially rebuilds the filetable, rather quickly I might add. And your volume works as intended, you can even force-compress it after.
The most interesting thing - you can mount it on Windows later, and performance will be the same (supposedly, I did not run any extensive testing).

All in all - it's my solid daily driver both for work and gaming for almost 3 months now and I love it.

[GarlicDeliverySystem]

On 5/20/2026 at 11:32 PM, Bramimond said:

Which is what I've been saying this entire time?

 

Recommending the CLI is like recommending to get fit and eat healthy. You don't have to, obviously. 

 

But I wouldn't like it if the gym became a place for obese people to eat potato chips, so to speak. Not even if that meant gym membership going up.

Yes, yes... no gatekeeping here. Imagine every gym would say "must be at least decently fit and able to bench X before allowed to join". Just so that fat people don't show up...arguably the people you want to see in a gym.

 

 

I can't speak for the others, but my main issue with the "CLI being optional" narrative is that it is really not the case:

• Given that most long-term users prefer it for honestly legit reasons means that most tutorials are written and structured around CLI use
• the fragmented state of the distro space also means that GUIs are fragmented in their design language, further pushing the CLI use.

Again, I don't object to the pro-CLI arguments, but I dislike the borderline gaslighting that is going on with 'oh, you don't need to know it. But it you better learn it.'. And then only providing tutorials/guides with CLI in 95% of the time. How that is not an issue for new users, I don't know.

 

[Lurking]

1 hour ago, razz3r said:

After pt.1 of this I also tried again to go with Linux, namely - Bazzite.
And I can say - THANK YOU!)

I booted into Win only once since installation to grab some VPN configs. After that - long forgotten and can go to hell)
Yes, there are some quirks here and there from time to time, but I didn't expect it to move that far since my last attempt 2y ago.

If you're up to fiddle with configs and whatnot - almost everything can run. Though - had to move on from Fusion 360, I did finally run it but performance sucks.

For games - brilliant, except a couple EAC-heavy titles like BF2, PUBG and so on. Devs could enable Proton support, but they won't.
Ran over 2 dozens titles including heavy latest stuff like Pragmata, Stalker 2 and StarRupture. Latter 2 even run a bit better than on Windows (Pragmata was bought after transition). Some titles run significantly faster. WoT goes at whopping 30 fps more at same settings)

Oh, and that NTFS problem of Luke's - Bazzite unlike Cachy does warn you about NTFS being not the best option performance-wise.
Instead, there's a good solution - ntfs2btrfs, it essentially rebuilds the filetable, rather quickly I might add. And your volume works as intended, you can even force-compress it after.
The most interesting thing - you can mount it on Windows later, and performance will be the same (supposedly, I did not run any extensive testing).

All in all - it's my solid daily driver both for work and gaming for almost 3 months now and I love it.

Glad to hear it works for you. Yeah, the UniversalBlue Linux are the only OS designed for modern users that just want to be users ( and not tinker all day long). Set to auto-updates weekly and you never have to maintain anything.

 

If you are sure you stay with Linux, I'd recommend not using NTFS, but btrfs. If you still use W11 for some games, maybe create a separate NTFS partition? 

 

Who knows how well NTFS will work with future Kernels, new bugs ... just better to use each OS native formats.