this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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That is one of the most annoying thing that i experienced (and still do) when i switched to linux some months ago. Sometimes I have a problem and I look online to solve it where I see that i have to do some terminal commands explaimed with terms I dont know and maybe edit a file in /etc, only to find out some days later that I could have done it very easily with the GUI in much less time and without that hassle. Most advanced users find the terminal easier, but for new users it is really hard without knowing the commands and can only copy-paste. Over time i started to learn some commands, but doing it so abruptly will just discourage everyone.
Switching to linux was a very good thing I did and I should have done it earlier, but I still keep a copy of windows, the biggest reason is to have a machine that just works if i really need to do some thing and if I have a problem with linux, that and for compatibility, to a smaller extent as I (luckly) do not use need to use THAT programs the just refuse to work in linux
The alternative of showing things in the GUI is not great either because of the number of distros and desktop environment. I imagine that a article/forum response with 30 SS of the different combinations of distro + desktop environment will be overwhelming for the beginner anyway
yeah, thats one of the reasons why most tech support hotlines are less than helpful when you are running linux (except basic configuration data) - the amount of different systen configurations, UI's and versions you can run into is just too big. Windows had at the most 5 different concurrent versions in the wild (Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP was the maximum i encountered in the same timeframe, and the NT's were occurring once in blue moon)
But at the same time is easier an answer more specific things than finding a answer in the windows forums, not only that is easier to search for "fedora 40" than "windows 10 update 22ThatBreaksMyFuckingSystem000"
My personal experience has shown me that the average person calling a support hotline has just enough computer experience to move the mouse and type web addresses into the google search bar instead of the address bar of their browser. you definitely wont get a cohesive description of their issue out of them, and they wont be able to tell you what OS they are using. (i got answers like "Microsoft", "HP" or "Internet Explorer" when asking)
There is no way in hell to guide them so you get specific error messages or fix the issue with them instructing them over the phone when their OS can look and feel a thousand ways and you can't see their screen.
I personally don't have an issue with researching why something doesn't work, but i know about the importance of error messages and how they relate to the used software. But there is no way to guide someone like the described callers through that process when differentiating between the left and the right mouse button is already difficult.