this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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That command terminal thing is so real. When it works, its magic. When it doesn't work, you just messed with forces you didn't understand and are already forced into chancing a repair and maybe make the problem worst or getting back to the original one! (Very discouraging if you are just trying to get work done, especially for non techies)
I think the problem with linux users is that they can't imagine that the appeal for most people who want to use an OS is to make something happen in the "real world" with a top level piece of software, like you want to draw a cute cat on the screen not learn how the compositor draws the pixels to multiple different screen resolutions WHEN the monitor model is a use case supported scenario.
The objective is to use the computer as a tool NOW for a SPECIFIC thing without diving into the inner guts of the machine for some people, and that's honestly fine.
Some of us are old enough to remember when "that command terminal thing" was computing. Now there's something about text on a black screen that seems to make people's eyes glaze over and their brains turn off today. You'd think they were being asked to decipher the Matrix. Too many generations removed I suppose.
The reality is I'm definitely not figuring out how my compositor works, almost never touching system files, infrequently scripting, and almost always using "a tool NOW for a SPECIFIC thing." I'm not a tech luddite. Modern computing is shiny and awesome. You want graphical tools for graphical tasks. But there are so many excellent specific-purpose CLI tools, typically included by default across nearly every distro, that make so much more sense to use over a GUI. Maybe not always but most of the time.
Simple example, damned if I'm gonna open a file browser, navigate to my downloads directory, right click - Cut (or Ctrl X), navigate to another directory, paste, then right click - Rename. Not when I can just open a terminal (realistically, I always have it open) and
mv ~/downloads/kewlwallpapers_abstract_dark_blah_blah.jpg ~/pics/wallpaper/abstract_003.jpgEspecially when tab completion means I just have to type a partial path or filename and slap Tab to fill in the rest. It's just so quick.