I'm bewildered that the "user friendly" flavors of linux still use ancient terminals. If the fact that these distros still lean heavily on terminal use wasn't bad enough, you also need to have a computer intuition from 1985 to feel comfortable using it. At least capitulate to ctrl+v and ctrl+c.
> I'm bewildered that the "user friendly" flavors of linux still use ancient terminals.
Do they? I was given to believe that you can use modern Ubuntu/Fedora/OpenSUSE without needing to open a terminal.
> If the fact that these distros still lean heavily on terminal use wasn't bad enough, you also need to have a computer intuition from 1985 to feel comfortable using it. At least capitulate to ctrl+v and ctrl+c.
Okay, let's say we're going to break backwards-compatibility; how should the user kill the running program, and how should they input character literals, and how are we going to implement your change?
Just to get it out of the way - Linux is great if you are a grandma or linux junkie. It sucks for everyone in between, especially for those who come from Windows or MacOS.
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This is the fundamental problem with the terminal, it is extremely powerful when you are intimately familiar with using it. And it's unsurprising that people building distros and maintaining linux fall into that camp.
What they are completely blind to is how incredibly user hostile the environment for people from a GUI complete background. What is the first thing every mainstream Unix based OS does? They take the terminal and hide it. They make menus and menus of GUI elements that cover 80-90% of the things you would typically use the terminal for aside from the 5% of ultra power users.
My gripe is primarily that Linux is _desparetly_ needed now more than ever as an escape from windows. But the people who are working on linux distros are so lost in their egos that they are arrogantly trapped in this idea that everyone needs to be driving stick shift in 2024 because look at how much more control you have compared to an automatic, if that analogy makes sense.
> My gripe is primarily that Linux is _desparetly_ needed now more than ever as an escape from windows.
If all you see Linux as is a crappy free clone of Windows with less user abuse, you'll certainly be left disappointed when it doesn't deliver.
For all their faults, Microsoft pours a ton of money into Windows's usablity and backwards compatibility. If anything, it's impressive Linux DE's come close with a fraction of the funding and organizational structure compared to a literal tech giant.
> But the people who are working on linux distros are so lost in their egos that they are arrogantly trapped in this idea that everyone needs to be driving stick shift in 2024 because look at how much more control you have compared to an automatic, if that analogy makes sense.
Is it really "ego" if the people working on these distros simply like it better this way? Are they wrong for developing the program (oftentimes in their free time) to accomodate the way they, and most people who contribute to the project, enjoy using it?
Sure, it would be great if we could accommodate everyone. But as most FOSS projects are chronically understaffed and underfunded, people prioritize creating a product they can enjoy using.
>Is it really "ego" if the people working on these distros simply like it better this way? Are they wrong for developing the program (oftentimes in their free time) to accomodate the way they, and most people who contribute to the project, enjoy using it?
From Ubuntu's missions statement:
>We believe that bringing free software to the widest audience will empower individuals and communities to innovate, experiment and grow.
I'd say they have been failing catastrophically at that for the last 20 years. And so do the statistics.
If they could just dedicate two releases to snuffing out as much terminal use as possible, they could probably double their market share in a month.
This is a silly thread, beginners don’t even know the terminal exists, and 99% don’t need to.
The situation is the same in Windows, though they might have a few more duplicated GUIs, they don’t solve the long tail of troubleshooting. You can also use a Mac Keyboard with Linux.
It doesn’t make any sense to remove terminals either, when available and tiny in resource use. Use an OS modeled on the original Mac OS if you want to be prevented from seeing a terminal.
Utopia never existed in the computing world. But the war on general purpose computing sure has. Soon there will be no place to turn for an experienced user who is not a slave to bigcorp interests. Unfortunately the bondage you recommend leads here, they are now coupled.
To extend, this issue affects an incredibly small number of computer users. The 1% that knows it exists, divided by the large fraction that is too busy (or lazy?) to work around it:
The reason it falls between the cracks is because it doesn't affect enough people, especially normal folks. But let's not kid ourselves that integrating one of the existing fixes would affect the industry significantly.
> Okay, let's say we're going to break backwards-compatibility; how should the user kill the running program, and how should they input character literals, and how are we going to implement your change?
Please don’t take it personally, but I find it a bit sad that your imagination ends here. These two questions depend entirely on the chosen implementation. If we’re talking about a new implementation, should we really start by accepting the limitations and constraints of the existing system as requirements for the improvement?
> I find it a bit sad that your imagination ends here.
This isn't the limit of what's possible, it's a lower bound of questions that you have to answer if you want to build a replacement.
> These two questions depend entirely on the chosen implementation.
Okay? Feel free to include multiple answers, but you need at least one.
> If we’re talking about a new implementation, should we really start by accepting the limitations and constraints of the existing system as requirements for the improvement?
If you ditch all the behaviors of the old system without figuring out how to shim them in, then you can build a beautiful new system that's free of all the problems of the old system, and that's also free of all users because you just jettisoned all the programs that let people actually do useful work with their computers. We're stuck with 50 years of backwards compatibility not because we love it, but because people need to be able to interact with their machines without relearning everything, and people need to be able to use the machine to run the programs they're using.
Instead of a specific key combination that a) clashes with the way the vast majority of computer users enter text, b) is neither obvious nor easily discoverable, and c) not available or awkward to enter depending on the input device, we could also separate the monitoring of running processes from the command prompt and let the terminal application offer a control to cancel them, or match modern user expectations and do so using the Escape key. Or entirely different.
The point is that we don't use ^C because it's ergonomic or obvious, but because of conventions inherited from a time long gone. Keeping legacy software running does not imply imposing the same UX constraints on users.
> Instead of a specific key combination that a) clashes with the way the vast majority of computer users enter text, b) is neither obvious nor easily discoverable, and c) not available or awkward to enter depending on the input device,
I grant that a) it's different from everything else, but b) CUA shortcuts aren't obvious or discoverable either, they're just more common, and c) I can't think of any device that has a terminal where ctrl isn't readily available. Nonetheless, I actually agree that if we could do it without breaking everything, moving everything to the same convention is compelling on its own. (Of course, I don't think we can do it without breaking everything, but that's life.)
> we could also separate the monitoring of running processes from the command prompt and let the terminal application offer a control to cancel them,
When I want a process dead, I want it dead now, not after I've found the mouse and hit a button. I also have concerns about how that button is going to actually work under the hood; the only options I can think of are that that sends a simulated ctrl-c, or the terminal emulator suddenly has to track child processes and decide what to kill (which strikes me as a bad idea).
> or match modern user expectations and do so using the Escape key.
And in so doing break anything that was using escape, like vi. Incidentally, the plan to intercept ctrl-c will break emacs, too. Which is why I strongly disagree with
> Keeping legacy software running does not imply imposing the same UX constraints on users.
because breaking legacy software is exactly the trade you're proposing.
Would Ctrl-c work conditionally based on if there is a foreground process? What if I want to paste in to the process?
The command key on macOS really comes in handy here.
The “windows” key on most Linux desktop environments I have used is usually pretty under-utilized, perhaps there’s a case to be made that super-v should default to paste.
