And yet, Linux desktop users insist that it's a viable consumer OS instead of accepting that they're using an industrial OS not well suited for the average desktop user.
no ones running linux mint on a server, and most consumers wont run debian or whatever. the point of different distros is different target audiences.
Well aware, but Mint also isn't broadly consumer ready. It's ready for power users who don't mind going into a command line occasionally, or people who have their whole machine locked down and administered by someone else.
Android kind of disagrees with you though
Android's a pretty big fork of desktop Linux, and it's not even that usable without Google Play Services, nor is it particularly usable as a desktop operating system.
Android obviously isn’t a good desktop operating system, but it doesn't fit the description of
an industrial OS not well suited for the average desktop user
it absolutely fits the second part of that sentence:
OS not well suited for the average desktop user
You're literally just getting hung up on the word industrial and making a pointless semantic argument. Android also isn't a viable consumer OS without the closed source Google Play Services bundle
The fact that Android is not an “industrial OS” proves that Linux is not just an “industrial OS”. The fact that Android is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user” does not prove that a Linux is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user”, so of course I didn’t use it to prove that point.
Even so, you seem to take issue with the point that I did make. Is it, or is it not, “an industrial OS”? They’re your words, don’t come complaining to me because you chose them poorly.
Android also isn't a viable consumer OS without the closed source Google Play Services bundle
This is patently false. The fact that Google Play isn’t even available in one of Android’s biggest markets, China, should have been a clue.
Bonus:
The average desktop user seems to be digging those newfangled Chromebooks. What say you about those devices?
Would you consider BSD to be “an industrial OS not suited for the average desktop user?” Because, cards on the table, the BSD and Linux kernels are quite similar in the grand scheme of things, and one of them has a 17% desktop/laptop market share.
maybe normal users should just get over it, and use the command line once in a while. its really not as hard as people make it out to be, if youre just running basic commands.
How about, no. I want my computer to work for me. I don't want to work for my computer. This is why the majority of programmers out there, people who clearly can use the command line, use Windows.
Bringing us back to my original comment about Linux desktop users being unable to accept that it's not consumer ready.
you do realize that people can learn new things. im tired of treating people as clueless 'consumers' who just 'arent tech savvy'. learn the basics of how to use a computer, such as copy/paste, and know how to troubleshoot. thats all im asking.
this wouldnt be too big of a problem if it were something like switching people from ubuntu to arch, or xorg to wayland (as examples of intra-community arguments). but the alternative to linux (for consumers) is windows or mac, which are actively harmful to our society. its not just a matter of linux being easier, faster, simpler, more extensible, or anything, although it is. its about people understanding what corporations are using them for, and the common sense to recognize this.
I know and use Linux as a desktop. I constantly switch back to Windows because Linux flaws aren't worth my time. It's not about clueless consumers. It's about not dealing with an os that actively makes it harder to use your computer than the competition.
And the rest of society is tired of nerds saying garbage like "why doesn't every single consumer spend a week taking a training course to learn how to use my crappy UX" instead of spending the time to make an intuitive UX that doesn't need a week long training course.
intuition is subjective
No, it's not, the fundamentals of UX are rooted in human psychology and the way our brains respond to basic patterns like grouping and hierarchies.
How is it not? You never have to go in a terminal 99% of the time (and on Windows there are those cases as well). The only reasons I use the terminal is either to edit my Nix Flake and rebuild switch, which is only because I use NixOS and would not be required on Mint, to use Distrobox, which wouldn't be needed on Mint as 90% of Linux app are either Deb Packages, Flatpaks or Appimages or simply because I find it easier to do some power-user stuff in there. But for the average user on Mint, they wouldn't even need to touch the terminal.
How is it not?
This sentence is a great example of why it's not:
90% of Linux app are either Deb Packages, Flatpaks or Appimages
exe, msi, sh... It's honestly not very difficult to get the difference between debs and other formats, and you don't have to either. You open the app store or download a .deb from a webpage and you're done.
There's bits where Linux is too fragmented, but for most distros with a good appstore setup, this flat out isn't one of them.
I switched recently and it took a while to be a 'power user' again, but the mainstream functionality works and makes sense about the same as Windows.
I barely have to use the commandline, that's more for power users. And that's on Arch (after configuring everything the way I want). On distros like Mint it's not even necessary after a fresh install. I used to help people with their pc, and to my surprise I came across Linux Mint multiple times, at older people no less.
I mean, nothing about the os isn't well suited for consumers. It's just software isn't written for it.
Yeah if anything it's more "consumer friendly" than Windows!
"Oh hey we forced another update on you...anyway can you find the tiny 'skip for now' link on like 10 ads before we let you use your property we're running on? Or you can just do yourself a favor and click on the big bold 'please daddy Microsoft take care of it all here's my credit card and I want more ads' buttons on your way. That'd be great!"
If my 80 year old tech illiterate grandma can use a windows laptop to check her emails and use amazon then it's user friendly enough. I genuinely shudder at the thought of trying rk coach her through setting up Linux.
Through setting up?! Oh I'm going to get nightmares now!
I just meant "Hey, here's a computer, that's the Internet button, there's a repository app store with free programs, and occasionally you can click update when it says so and have a nice ol' time."
Using something like Mint or Elementary to set up a nice padded play pen. XD
Yeah I'm just against invasive commercialization, I don't envision or encourage trying to move towards
"Granny uses Arch btw"
Lmao
what's the difference between a consumer os and an industrial os in your opinion? I personally really like how linux works on the desktop
If the average user has to interact with a command line interface, EVER, as anything but a truly desperate last resort, with someone holding their hand the whole way through, they're probably gonna give up and never wanna look back.
A lot of people barely know how to copy and paste, or don't even know what the phrase "right click" means.
When I did some work from home training a year ago, I looked like a goddamn wizard for knowing how to manage browser tabs and put folders on my bookmarks bar.
TLDR: It needs to just work for people that don't know jack shit about using a computer, which in a lot of cases it just doesn't.
This is all very true, but I feel like the society has also failed to properly teach basic IT to the general population. Personal computers are a massively used tool in today's everyday life and work. It deeply concerns me that even the "tech generation", i.e. gen z I guess, generally don't even understand what files and directories are. Generic boomers are even worse because they just never learned anything, even touch screen UIs. These people can just about get by now, but I'm not so sure anymore when we go forward a decade or two when we rely on IT services more and more.
I feel like there was a very short window where PCs were just easy enough to use that most people had one, but the OS experience was just complex enough, with things breaking frequently enough, that you had to learn some basics out of necessity.
Like , I'm a 100% not an IT guy - but I know all sorts of shit that seems like it should be common knowledge, but isn't. Any time I manage to get something in our IT and software environment functioning at work, or explain the chain of events to some catastrophe based on evidence in our software logs, and I get talked about like some kind of wunderkind, it is frustrating more than anything else.
I'm not some IT genius, I'm your average asshole who knows some basics about the tools we use in 99.9% of the work we do. Chances are if there were more of said assholes we wouldn't run into the problems I address in the first place. But admittedly, perhaps some of that knowledge/ability to think that way comes from having to figure out shit like why my DOS game wouldn't work in 1995, or what the fuck that purple monkey Mom downloaded a few years later was actually doing.
Ugh - sorry, this turned into a rant, this kind of shit has been top of mind recently...
Yeah, I am kinda the opposite - I'm halfway through a master's in software engineering and I work in the field, using Linux at work and Windows on my own PC.
Still, as I never use e.g. Word or other office programs I don't know jack shit about them. But as one of the family "computer guys" I am constantly asked to help with stuff that I rarely use or even have never used before. If they had the ability to think in the correct way, like how you just mentioned you do, they would be able to resolve at least 70% of the problems pretty effortlessly. Society definitely needs to teach these basics better so that people could just google their problem and deal with it.
At that point they'll adapt.
They are scared of technology, but when forced to interact with it by themselves, when nobody's there to help, they learn very quick.
It just requires some short stress and bare minimum effort.
Says someone who grew up with computers.
Yes, and often had no one to help.
Search engines are out there! Also, it is very much proven from personal experience that older generations can troubleshoot issues themselves when I'm not available. They just tell me after the fact.
I helped my neighbor "fix/restore" her computer... which she had already paid someone to backup her files and clean. I showed her how to plug in her external hdd to access her documents, re-signed into her mail client, and re-installed MS Office. And that was pretty much it
While she was looking for her MSOffice product key, I did a quick "systeminfo" in the command prompt; I was just curious about her hardware. She saw the terminal and of course made the comment of "you must be a programmer"... I absolutely am not. I have literally gotten to printf ("Hello, World!") in C and moved on to another hobby lol
Some people really just don't mess with computers at all. Of course it seems silly from my perspective to not know how an external hdd works, but I mean... there's plenty of silly shit I don't know either. Doesn't matter, she was stoked to have her system back up like she wanted. But yeah, that was my most recent encounter with someone who really struggled with computers. No shame, cause she surely knows a lot about some stuff that I'm clueless about.
I did install Firefox with ublock just for my own use while I was there, because I refused to use Edge. Maybe she'll keep it
Not only are there people who don't mess with computers. There are also people who are just never online. They don't have internet or even a smartphone to speak of.
They live in a different reality compared to us techies. And they get around just fine.
And no, I am not just talking about the Amish, but people we encounter in our daily lives.
They can be wood workers, plumbers, mechanics even welders, and not ever touch a computer in their lives.
Linuxians need to remember to get out of their bubble sometimes, big parts of the world don't revolve around computers.
I find this differentiation difficult. Most companies run Windows computers in their non IT office functions. The ones that don't mostly use Mac OS.
Given that any reasonable company IT is not allowing any User modifications on the systems and distributes white listed applications only, it would be perfectly viable to run Linux on every company computer. If something is broken, the User would call IT or write a ticket. No sane IT department lets 55 year old Jane from accounting anywhere near a command prompt.
Customizeability does not make an OS "industrial". 99% of the Users in an industry setting are not supposed to customize anything on their computer aside from maybe the desktop background.
This is utterly false.
Most companies allow users to customize their machines however they want outside of a few restricted and locked down settings.
Hell I'm looking at a laptop issued to me by one of the world's largest automotive companies and I can change any setting I want outside of some specific security settings.
So you are saying, that you can install and uninstall any software by yourself?
You can access the company network, and network drives without any sandbox?
You can install or remove browser plugins?
You can create or remove local users with custom access rights and gain administrator rights for your local installation?
You can put any program you like into the autostart and quit any processes you like?
You can install drivers for any periphal hardware you are connecting and you can mount any external drive you want?
What point are you trying to make? That if I can't customize absolutely everything on it, then being able to customize most things without using the command line isn't valuable?
The point i am trying to make is that you are not being allowed to do any of these, if the company has any reasonable security in place.
So the settings you can change are things anyone can change on a windows machines just as easily using the GUI. So customizeability by the end user is not a characteristic that makes an OS "industrial". Linux distros are not "industrial" because they are customizeable by the end user and most companies run windows computers outside the IT and backend, even though a linux system could do the same without any problem for the end user.
I never claimed that Linux was industrial because it can be changed by the end user, I claimed that it's industrial because there are basic things that any normal power user would want to do that can only be done via command line.
Tbf if Linux is already installed and running on the computer you really don't need to use the CLI at all now. And if Windows isn't installed on the computer your average user couldn't figure out either. This is more a matter of Windows usually coming pre-installed and configured.
Guess that’s what happens when you live in an echo chamber, you think end thinking the world thinks the same way you do.
Sure, Mint (and other distros) do exactly that. But the installation part will always be out of reach for most users. That part is scary to them. Ergo we need beginner friendly distros preinstalled on devices to get a higher market share.
This.
Despite majority of Linux distributions now having Calamares or similar installer (which your grandma can effortlessly navigate and successfully install Linux, should you be around and tell her she's doing amazing), the mere fear of going on step to the side and "destroying computer forever" is paralyzing for them.
They are scared of anything that can make any change in the system, they feel a mere mortal can't understand it, and they don't bother.
Which is why preinstalled is the only option.
As per usage, the common scenarios already don't require any terminal. Your family member who needs to just surf the Web, edit documents, watch media and play some games will NEVER face Linux terminal.
How did this comment receive this many votes? Calling Linux industrial is baffling.
That's because it is a perfectly viable consumer os. At least the distros are, Linux is just the kernel.
What makes a distro an industrial os? I wouldn't use Arch for industrial purposes. So no, I won't accept that I use an industrial os, because it isn't.
I feel like this is a good time to point out that Linux is but the kernel. There are server-focused distros, there are consumer-focused distros. Linux supports them all; it isn't really industrial in itself.
Because it is. What is an "industrial OS" anyway? Also it's important to remember that "Linux" is just a kernel (the software that acts as a "bridge" between the rest of the OS and the hardware). Android is Linux, Ubuntu is Linux, Arch is Linux, Debian is Linux, Slackware is Linux, etc. And yet those are vastly different OSes. You would maybe run Ubuntu, Debian or RHEL on a server (which maybe you could consider industrial). But you would never use Arch or Android on a server. Android is the most popular mobile OS, would you consider that industrial? And for the desktop, the average user would use something like Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Fedora. But you'd never use the graphical version of those on the server and I don't think they would be considered industrial OSes.
So anyway, what's your point exactly?
What is an “industrial OS” anyway?
A non-consumer focused OS. One focused on serving commercial industry.
So anyway, what’s your point exactly?
I've never once been able to setup a Linux distro, and walk through my normal steps of customizing settings the way I'd like and installing the basic programs I need to do office work, without at some point running into instructions that tell you to use the command line. I'm a professional programmer and have no issue with that, but I'm also someone capable of understanding where the average human being is at technology wise and recognize that would be a non-starter for them.
A non-consumer focused OS. One focused on serving commercial industry.
Linux was actually developed as a (kernel for a) desktop OS. It doesn't focus on the server or the desktop, distros do that.
What distros did you try and when? In 2023, you can totally set up Ubuntu or Linux Mint without using the terminal. Obviously for "power-user" settings you might need to use the terminal or edit config files, but just as regular users cannot do those things, they also don't need that functionality.
Linux has purpose built distros for pretty much anything. It's not that you're wrong, you prolly just tried and are talking abt something that didn't fit you. Try Mint or something.
And yet, Linux desktop users insist that it's a viable consumer OS instead of accepting that they're using an industrial OS not well suited for the average desktop user.
no ones running linux mint on a server, and most consumers wont run debian or whatever. the point of different distros is different target audiences.
Well aware, but Mint also isn't broadly consumer ready. It's ready for power users who don't mind going into a command line occasionally, or people who have their whole machine locked down and administered by someone else.
Android kind of disagrees with you though
Android's a pretty big fork of desktop Linux, and it's not even that usable without Google Play Services, nor is it particularly usable as a desktop operating system.
Android obviously isn’t a good desktop operating system, but it doesn't fit the description of
it absolutely fits the second part of that sentence:
You're literally just getting hung up on the word industrial and making a pointless semantic argument. Android also isn't a viable consumer OS without the closed source Google Play Services bundle
The fact that Android is not an “industrial OS” proves that Linux is not just an “industrial OS”. The fact that Android is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user” does not prove that a Linux is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user”, so of course I didn’t use it to prove that point.
Even so, you seem to take issue with the point that I did make. Is it, or is it not, “an industrial OS”? They’re your words, don’t come complaining to me because you chose them poorly.
This is patently false. The fact that Google Play isn’t even available in one of Android’s biggest markets, China, should have been a clue.
Bonus:
maybe normal users should just get over it, and use the command line once in a while. its really not as hard as people make it out to be, if youre just running basic commands.
How about, no. I want my computer to work for me. I don't want to work for my computer. This is why the majority of programmers out there, people who clearly can use the command line, use Windows.
Bringing us back to my original comment about Linux desktop users being unable to accept that it's not consumer ready.
you do realize that people can learn new things. im tired of treating people as clueless 'consumers' who just 'arent tech savvy'. learn the basics of how to use a computer, such as copy/paste, and know how to troubleshoot. thats all im asking.
this wouldnt be too big of a problem if it were something like switching people from ubuntu to arch, or xorg to wayland (as examples of intra-community arguments). but the alternative to linux (for consumers) is windows or mac, which are actively harmful to our society. its not just a matter of linux being easier, faster, simpler, more extensible, or anything, although it is. its about people understanding what corporations are using them for, and the common sense to recognize this.
I know and use Linux as a desktop. I constantly switch back to Windows because Linux flaws aren't worth my time. It's not about clueless consumers. It's about not dealing with an os that actively makes it harder to use your computer than the competition.
And the rest of society is tired of nerds saying garbage like "why doesn't every single consumer spend a week taking a training course to learn how to use my crappy UX" instead of spending the time to make an intuitive UX that doesn't need a week long training course.
intuition is subjective
No, it's not, the fundamentals of UX are rooted in human psychology and the way our brains respond to basic patterns like grouping and hierarchies.
How is it not? You never have to go in a terminal 99% of the time (and on Windows there are those cases as well). The only reasons I use the terminal is either to edit my Nix Flake and
rebuild switch, which is only because I use NixOS and would not be required on Mint, to use Distrobox, which wouldn't be needed on Mint as 90% of Linux app are either Deb Packages, Flatpaks or Appimages or simply because I find it easier to do some power-user stuff in there. But for the average user on Mint, they wouldn't even need to touch the terminal.This sentence is a great example of why it's not:
exe, msi, sh... It's honestly not very difficult to get the difference between debs and other formats, and you don't have to either. You open the app store or download a .deb from a webpage and you're done.
There's bits where Linux is too fragmented, but for most distros with a good appstore setup, this flat out isn't one of them.
I switched recently and it took a while to be a 'power user' again, but the mainstream functionality works and makes sense about the same as Windows.
I barely have to use the commandline, that's more for power users. And that's on Arch (after configuring everything the way I want). On distros like Mint it's not even necessary after a fresh install. I used to help people with their pc, and to my surprise I came across Linux Mint multiple times, at older people no less.
I mean, nothing about the os isn't well suited for consumers. It's just software isn't written for it.
Yeah if anything it's more "consumer friendly" than Windows!
"Oh hey we forced another update on you...anyway can you find the tiny 'skip for now' link on like 10 ads before we let you use your property we're running on? Or you can just do yourself a favor and click on the big bold 'please daddy Microsoft take care of it all here's my credit card and I want more ads' buttons on your way. That'd be great!"
If my 80 year old tech illiterate grandma can use a windows laptop to check her emails and use amazon then it's user friendly enough. I genuinely shudder at the thought of trying rk coach her through setting up Linux.
Through setting up?! Oh I'm going to get nightmares now!
I just meant "Hey, here's a computer, that's the Internet button, there's a
repositoryapp store with free programs, and occasionally you can click update when it says so and have a nice ol' time."Using something like Mint or Elementary to set up a nice padded play pen. XD
Yeah I'm just against invasive commercialization, I don't envision or encourage trying to move towards "Granny uses Arch btw"
Lmao
what's the difference between a consumer os and an industrial os in your opinion? I personally really like how linux works on the desktop
If the average user has to interact with a command line interface, EVER, as anything but a truly desperate last resort, with someone holding their hand the whole way through, they're probably gonna give up and never wanna look back.
A lot of people barely know how to copy and paste, or don't even know what the phrase "right click" means.
When I did some work from home training a year ago, I looked like a goddamn wizard for knowing how to manage browser tabs and put folders on my bookmarks bar.
TLDR: It needs to just work for people that don't know jack shit about using a computer, which in a lot of cases it just doesn't.
This is all very true, but I feel like the society has also failed to properly teach basic IT to the general population. Personal computers are a massively used tool in today's everyday life and work. It deeply concerns me that even the "tech generation", i.e. gen z I guess, generally don't even understand what files and directories are. Generic boomers are even worse because they just never learned anything, even touch screen UIs. These people can just about get by now, but I'm not so sure anymore when we go forward a decade or two when we rely on IT services more and more.
I feel like there was a very short window where PCs were just easy enough to use that most people had one, but the OS experience was just complex enough, with things breaking frequently enough, that you had to learn some basics out of necessity.
Like , I'm a 100% not an IT guy - but I know all sorts of shit that seems like it should be common knowledge, but isn't. Any time I manage to get something in our IT and software environment functioning at work, or explain the chain of events to some catastrophe based on evidence in our software logs, and I get talked about like some kind of wunderkind, it is frustrating more than anything else.
I'm not some IT genius, I'm your average asshole who knows some basics about the tools we use in 99.9% of the work we do. Chances are if there were more of said assholes we wouldn't run into the problems I address in the first place. But admittedly, perhaps some of that knowledge/ability to think that way comes from having to figure out shit like why my DOS game wouldn't work in 1995, or what the fuck that purple monkey Mom downloaded a few years later was actually doing.
Ugh - sorry, this turned into a rant, this kind of shit has been top of mind recently...
Yeah, I am kinda the opposite - I'm halfway through a master's in software engineering and I work in the field, using Linux at work and Windows on my own PC.
Still, as I never use e.g. Word or other office programs I don't know jack shit about them. But as one of the family "computer guys" I am constantly asked to help with stuff that I rarely use or even have never used before. If they had the ability to think in the correct way, like how you just mentioned you do, they would be able to resolve at least 70% of the problems pretty effortlessly. Society definitely needs to teach these basics better so that people could just google their problem and deal with it.
At that point they'll adapt.
They are scared of technology, but when forced to interact with it by themselves, when nobody's there to help, they learn very quick.
It just requires some short stress and bare minimum effort.
Says someone who grew up with computers.
Yes, and often had no one to help.
Search engines are out there! Also, it is very much proven from personal experience that older generations can troubleshoot issues themselves when I'm not available. They just tell me after the fact.
I helped my neighbor "fix/restore" her computer... which she had already paid someone to backup her files and clean. I showed her how to plug in her external hdd to access her documents, re-signed into her mail client, and re-installed MS Office. And that was pretty much it
While she was looking for her MSOffice product key, I did a quick "systeminfo" in the command prompt; I was just curious about her hardware. She saw the terminal and of course made the comment of "you must be a programmer"... I absolutely am not. I have literally gotten to printf ("Hello, World!") in C and moved on to another hobby lol
Some people really just don't mess with computers at all. Of course it seems silly from my perspective to not know how an external hdd works, but I mean... there's plenty of silly shit I don't know either. Doesn't matter, she was stoked to have her system back up like she wanted. But yeah, that was my most recent encounter with someone who really struggled with computers. No shame, cause she surely knows a lot about some stuff that I'm clueless about.
I did install Firefox with ublock just for my own use while I was there, because I refused to use Edge. Maybe she'll keep it
Not only are there people who don't mess with computers. There are also people who are just never online. They don't have internet or even a smartphone to speak of.
They live in a different reality compared to us techies. And they get around just fine.
And no, I am not just talking about the Amish, but people we encounter in our daily lives.
They can be wood workers, plumbers, mechanics even welders, and not ever touch a computer in their lives.
Linuxians need to remember to get out of their bubble sometimes, big parts of the world don't revolve around computers.
I find this differentiation difficult. Most companies run Windows computers in their non IT office functions. The ones that don't mostly use Mac OS.
Given that any reasonable company IT is not allowing any User modifications on the systems and distributes white listed applications only, it would be perfectly viable to run Linux on every company computer. If something is broken, the User would call IT or write a ticket. No sane IT department lets 55 year old Jane from accounting anywhere near a command prompt.
Customizeability does not make an OS "industrial". 99% of the Users in an industry setting are not supposed to customize anything on their computer aside from maybe the desktop background.
This is utterly false.
Most companies allow users to customize their machines however they want outside of a few restricted and locked down settings.
Hell I'm looking at a laptop issued to me by one of the world's largest automotive companies and I can change any setting I want outside of some specific security settings.
So you are saying, that you can install and uninstall any software by yourself?
You can access the company network, and network drives without any sandbox?
You can install or remove browser plugins?
You can create or remove local users with custom access rights and gain administrator rights for your local installation?
You can put any program you like into the autostart and quit any processes you like?
You can install drivers for any periphal hardware you are connecting and you can mount any external drive you want?
What point are you trying to make? That if I can't customize absolutely everything on it, then being able to customize most things without using the command line isn't valuable?
The point i am trying to make is that you are not being allowed to do any of these, if the company has any reasonable security in place.
So the settings you can change are things anyone can change on a windows machines just as easily using the GUI. So customizeability by the end user is not a characteristic that makes an OS "industrial". Linux distros are not "industrial" because they are customizeable by the end user and most companies run windows computers outside the IT and backend, even though a linux system could do the same without any problem for the end user.
I never claimed that Linux was industrial because it can be changed by the end user, I claimed that it's industrial because there are basic things that any normal power user would want to do that can only be done via command line.
Tbf if Linux is already installed and running on the computer you really don't need to use the CLI at all now. And if Windows isn't installed on the computer your average user couldn't figure out either. This is more a matter of Windows usually coming pre-installed and configured.
Guess that’s what happens when you live in an echo chamber, you think end thinking the world thinks the same way you do.
Sure, Mint (and other distros) do exactly that. But the installation part will always be out of reach for most users. That part is scary to them. Ergo we need beginner friendly distros preinstalled on devices to get a higher market share.
This. Despite majority of Linux distributions now having Calamares or similar installer (which your grandma can effortlessly navigate and successfully install Linux, should you be around and tell her she's doing amazing), the mere fear of going on step to the side and "destroying computer forever" is paralyzing for them.
They are scared of anything that can make any change in the system, they feel a mere mortal can't understand it, and they don't bother.
Which is why preinstalled is the only option.
As per usage, the common scenarios already don't require any terminal. Your family member who needs to just surf the Web, edit documents, watch media and play some games will NEVER face Linux terminal.
How did this comment receive this many votes? Calling Linux industrial is baffling.
That's because it is a perfectly viable consumer os. At least the distros are, Linux is just the kernel. What makes a distro an industrial os? I wouldn't use Arch for industrial purposes. So no, I won't accept that I use an industrial os, because it isn't.
I feel like this is a good time to point out that Linux is but the kernel. There are server-focused distros, there are consumer-focused distros. Linux supports them all; it isn't really industrial in itself.
Because it is. What is an "industrial OS" anyway? Also it's important to remember that "Linux" is just a kernel (the software that acts as a "bridge" between the rest of the OS and the hardware). Android is Linux, Ubuntu is Linux, Arch is Linux, Debian is Linux, Slackware is Linux, etc. And yet those are vastly different OSes. You would maybe run Ubuntu, Debian or RHEL on a server (which maybe you could consider industrial). But you would never use Arch or Android on a server. Android is the most popular mobile OS, would you consider that industrial? And for the desktop, the average user would use something like Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Fedora. But you'd never use the graphical version of those on the server and I don't think they would be considered industrial OSes.
So anyway, what's your point exactly?
A non-consumer focused OS. One focused on serving commercial industry.
I've never once been able to setup a Linux distro, and walk through my normal steps of customizing settings the way I'd like and installing the basic programs I need to do office work, without at some point running into instructions that tell you to use the command line. I'm a professional programmer and have no issue with that, but I'm also someone capable of understanding where the average human being is at technology wise and recognize that would be a non-starter for them.
Linux was actually developed as a (kernel for a) desktop OS. It doesn't focus on the server or the desktop, distros do that.
What distros did you try and when? In 2023, you can totally set up Ubuntu or Linux Mint without using the terminal. Obviously for "power-user" settings you might need to use the terminal or edit config files, but just as regular users cannot do those things, they also don't need that functionality.
Linux has purpose built distros for pretty much anything. It's not that you're wrong, you prolly just tried and are talking abt something that didn't fit you. Try Mint or something.