So, I’m not that understanding of linux. But I guess I can’t call myself “new” anymore. I’ve been using linux since December. Although to be fair, I’m barely ever home. “Using” linux at this point mostly consists of opening firefox, and watching youtube.
I know “sudo” is “super user” “apt” is some kind of repository command, and then you type “install (program)”
But I’ve really taken to flatpack. I hate hate HATE the terminal. All I ever do is screw things up in there. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just follow commands. “Just copy/paste this exact set of text”. And then I have an error.
It’s kind of like knowing 4x4=16. And all you do is memorize that line, as opposed to knowing that 4x4 is the same as 4+4+4+4. And knowing what 4 is. If you memorized 4x4=16, but get presented with 4x4-2, and you don’t understand the core concept of numbers, you wouldn’t know how to adjust 16 to 14, and know WHY it’s 14. I’m just copy/pasting someone elses instructions.
sudo apt get firefox && -z, -r, -☆, -$, randop, redo, up.
That’s probably complete jibberish in terminal, but it helps you (the experienced linux user) understand how terminal feels/looks to me. If I had a problem, and troubleshooting told me to copy/paste that to solve my problem, I would. That to me looks as legitimate as any other jibberish that would actually work.
Ok. Rant aside, lets start a civil war in here! I’ve been using ZorinOS, and I kind of like it. HOWEVER, I did spend a considerable amount of time tweaking it. It’s finally how I want it, so I’m not messing with it. So I’ve never experienced KDE. I’ve only experienced GNOME. And quite honestly I don’t know what that means. I know it has to do with the desktop environment…but I don’t know what would be different if I used another desktop environment.
But that brings me to a question I was told you just can’t ask the linux community without blood being shed.
What’s better? KDE? Or GNOME?
The word “almost” is doing some heavy lifting there. Linux is still a “terminal culture”.
I spent 6 hours last night trying to figure out how to make a usb boot drive from ZorinOS.
Step 1 ‐ install BalenaEtcher.
I never figured out step 1. It’s not in the software store.
I downloaded the zip, and then had no idea what to do with it.
I watched a youtube video on what to do with the zip, and in his video he had one file in the zip. I had about 20 files, and a couple folders. And I didn’t have the file he used.
Eventually I found an APPimg file, and it installed Balena Etcher. But it wouldn’t launch after being installed.
Then I heard of some other way, starting with a Z. You can put multiple ISOs on it, and choose at boot.
So I downloaded ReactOS, 3 different versions of Mint, pop_os, and zaphrite os. The only one that booted was pop_os. Which I didn’t much care for, but at least it booted.
Spent 5 hours on that, and still have no idea how to use ZorinOS to make a usb boot disk that actually works.
In windows, you download an exe file for balena etcher, click it, probably go through 12 different screens of install, but then it works.
I know. And you say it well; I, like many long-time Linux users, are so used to the CLI for everything that looking at the desktop today it seems everything is now doable in a GUI.
I do see this; my comment was more that more effort is needed to normalize GUI interfaces for the remaining cases. There’s a GUI package manager (bauk?) that works on multiple distributions; I have my wife on Arch, and I always use that program when I have to install something, just to see if I can avoid opening a shell. It works pretty well for the most part… but EndeavorOS doesn’t install it by default, and I had to drop into a terminal to install it the first time. It’s stuff like that which still needs polishing.
Other areas have made great progress. I almost always use system-config-printer to do printer stuff because the Cups CLI tools are terrible and I use them so rarely I spend more time relearning them; it’s just easier to use the GUI, and it works well.
I think the next tool we’ll see (and need) is a GUI that will fetch install packages from source. For most Go and Rust end-user GUI programs, this could absolutely be done since both have a canonical methodology for installing or building software:
go installandcargo.cargo buildputs artifacts in a predictable location, andgo installinstalls them in a determinable one. The same is true for a lot of languages, e.g.pipx. There’s a supply-chain security concern, but if well-written this could be reduced by the tool. A really nice tool would be able to pull containers as well, like a sort of Flatpack-light.That said: my octogenarian father bought a used laptop about 6 months ago and called me, cross-country, to help him install Linux on it (it had some version of Windows on it). I helped him create a Mint flash drive on his old computer and walked through the GUI install with him over the phone, and he’s only called me once for help with it since, and that was to get the printer working; we solved it with GUI tools. He doesn’t install software; he’s running KDE and everything he’s wanted to do there’s been a KDE program for, already installed. But I don’t imagine he’s the common case.
I’m drifting. In any case: you’re right, there are still a lot of gaps, but I think many of those actually do have GUI solutions, they’re simply not used by distributions. It’d be interesting to see a distribution that tries to eliminate all of these cases by choosing software - like bauk - and installing it by default.
FWIW, perhaps you should reconsider if you should even use balenaEtcher.
Unfortunately, this does happen at times. Therefore, it’s a good idea to be aware of alternatives. One such example would be Fedora Media Writer that you may install as a flatpak. Though, the most popular is probably Ventoy.
Unfortunately, AppImages aren’t as reliable as one might expect. Assuming that your distro supports it OOTB, you’re still often required to explicitly allow it to be run as an executable. Which is a good thing for the sake of secure defaults*. Granting it is simply done by:
FWIW, the aforementioned Ventoy does just that.