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Spend time setting up Hyprland just for an update to break your config and now you have to troubleshoot before you can be productive (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

That would be true if the GUI worked correctly.

However, more often than not, some inner thing breaks, which means that the GUI just throws an error screen and tells you "good luck". So you have to search for that text in Google, and it will send you to an obscure forum where a guy said in 2014 that the solution for that problem is to run some random command in the terminal.

For example the "app store" GUI for Kubuntu never worked for me. It always stalls at some point or another. Meanwhile, running sudo apt upgrade worked flawlessly. Both operations should be doing the exact same thing under the hood.

Two times already, a relative that uses Manjaro but has no idea about Linux came to me for help because the "app store GUI" (which is a different one than in KDE) one day stopped working. The issue was to run some random key-relayed command.

Years later, I found out that apparently the Manjaro maintainers let their certificates expire MORE THAN ONCE. Which has to be fixed manually by the end user apparently. And they apparently didn't think of adding a notification in the GUI telling you about this. Which is bonkers. Not everyone reads all the news articles relating to their OS.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    That would be true if the GUI worked correctly.

    The GUI works correctly for the vast majority of the time.

    And MacOS and Windows also have GUI bugs, but we are so used to using these OSes that we know the workarounds.

    The difference with Linux is that depending on your desktop environment, you will have to learn a new workflow. On Windows and MacOS, you one desktop environment and that's it.

    However, more often than not, some inner thing breaks, which means that the GUI just throws an error screen and tells you "good luck". So you have to search for that text in Google, and it will send you to an obscure forum where a guy said in 2014 that the solution for that problem is to run some random command in the terminal.

    Happens with Windows too where you get an error code and then you have to registry entries to fix a bug. Again, same kind of issues with a different workflow.

    For example the "app store" GUI for Kubuntu never worked for me. It always stalls at some point or another. Meanwhile, running sudo apt upgrade worked flawlessly. Both operations should be doing the exact same thing under the hood

    I've had lots of issues with Windows store where a software wouldn't install correctly and I had no way to install what I needed to. At least, with Linux, you have multiple way to install a software. The app store is just a GUI over the package manager.

    Two times already, a relative that uses Manjaro but has no idea about Linux came to me for help because the "app store GUI" (which is a different one than in KDE) one day stopped working. The issue was to run some random key-relayed command.

    I do the IT for work (small company, 4 employees) and the number of time I had to un-break something in Windows for no apparent reason is high. Bugs happen in any OS. Linux is no different.

    Years later, I found out that apparently the Manjaro maintainers let their certificates expire MORE THAN ONCE. Which has to be fixed manually by the end user apparently. And they apparently didn't think of adding a notification in the GUI telling you about this. Which is bonkers. Not everyone reads all the news articles relating to their OS.

    That's dumb and I agree with you, but that's not a Linux issue though, that's a Manjaro maintainers issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Most issues are a maintainers issue. Rarely is the issue in Linux itself. Most of the issues are in userland.

    Yes. All OS have bugs, and yes, we are used to doing workarounds for windows too. But most of the time, that workaround is fishing for a setting in an obscure menu with a Windows7 UI. But it is still a GUI. If you read the labels of the buttons you can navigate the menus to reach the button you want to press.

    I have never ever had to edit the registry to fix an issue. I have maybe edited the registry 10 times in my whole life, most of the time it was to customize beyond what the GUI offers, not to fix a bug. That's on my PC, I don't work in IT for a company. Maybe company management requires more extensive use of the registry.

    The whole point of my comment is not that Linux breaks constantly while windows doesn't. Of course it's going to break more often, since there is an uncountable different Linux configurations, it's incredibly more complex than having 2-3 versions of windows to maintain.

    The point is that you can fix most issues on windows with the GUI, while on Linux you have to use the terminal most of the times.

    We also know those windows workarounds because GUIs are way more discoverable than terminal commands.

    GUIs act like trees. If you don't care about the "personalization" branch of the menus, you just don't click on it.

    Terminals act like lists. You do ls /usr/bin you'll just get shown hundreds of binaries. Which are not categorized in any way. Only when you know which binary solves your issue you can read the man and get something that hopefully resembles a tree, with headings of different levels.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I have never ever had to edit the registry to fix an issue. I have maybe edited the registry 10 times in my whole life, most of the time it was to customize beyond what the GUI offers, not to fix a bug. That's on my PC, I don't work in IT for a company. Maybe company management requires more extensive use of the registry.

    I have edited the registry a lot when I last used Windows when I used it last a few years ago, and even had to do it for the other employees while maintaining their PC.

    The whole point of my comment is not that Linux breaks constantly while windows doesn't. Of course it's going to break more often, since there is an uncountable different Linux configurations, it's incredibly more complex than having 2-3 versions of windows to maintain.

    The point is that you can fix most issues on windows with the GUI, while on Linux you have to use the terminal most of the times.

    And you can do the same with the GUI on Linux. However, since the GUI is mostly just a wrapper around Linux CLI cmds, it's a lot faster to fix issues from the terminal.

    Linux was used mostly by power users a few years ago, and they tend to use the CLI a lot more. Thus the knowledge they have and share is the one they know, the CLI. Hell, when I have to use Windows, I will use thr CLI unless I absolutely have to use the GUI.

    And that's the knowledge that is usually shared because regardless of which distro/desktop environment you use, the CLI is consistent across the distro.

    But Linux has come a long way and many issues can be corrected through the GUI

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