On Windows, features are often a few clicks away from being enabled or modified. Software that you download also does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to changing your settings to what the program needs.
On the Linux distros that I’ve used, way too much setup is required via copying and pasting commands into the terminal. There were times when I completely replaced my path variables instead of appending to them, and that is way harder to do on Windows than Linux. Mistakes like that often lead me to installing a distro 3 times when doing a project, whereas Windows 11 rarely has those issues.
I would argue both have evolved in the opposite way though. Windows has become so unintuitive for me with every version after win 7. Splitting up control panel in many different locations. Multiple methods to remove different applications,… On windows server, it was even worse, and as soon as I moved away from Microsoft’s default built-in crap to third party tools, things actually became much easier.
While with Linux, things worked out of the box for me for a long time already and the process of things make sense a lot times, taking into account the requires minimal knowledge is there.
You just grew up using Windows and are used to its design language – that doesn’t make it inherently intuitive.
If you are fucking with path variables you’re already a power user. The settings for an OOTB Ubuntu or other user-friendly distro are pretty damn intuitive, and if you’re dealing with anything more complex, I personally would far rather use bash or other Linux shells than Powershell.
You’re only partially correct. I did grow up using Windows, but I also dual-booted Ubuntu on every machine that I could. I also used a Macbook exclusively for a few years, and MacOS was way closer to Linux than Windows was back then.
Nowadays, I also use a mix of Powershell and Ubuntu via WSL, depending on what I need. Linux commands usually do less than what I’d like it to, but they work like simple building blocks. Powershell does exactly what I want, but some of these commands are way too freaking long.
However, I’d argue that path variables aren’t for power users. Sure, it’s not for your grandmother, but a decent chunk of people who wanted to run a Minecraft server for their friends probably looked into path variables, and almost all of them looked at firewall settings and port forwarding. Those people will be confused and scared of GUIs and editing txt or bat files. Without a friend walking them through the process, opening a terminal is infinitely more intimidating. Even if someone is fine with learning terminal commands, there aren’t nearly enough checks with Linux commands when doing something potentially destructive compared to Windows. With Windows, you usually get some minor annoyance with hard to find solutions at worst. With Linux, assuming no backups, you’ll end up needing to clean install if you’re trying to learn how to do something.
In all fairness, I haven’t used Linux GUIs often in about 4 years. The most recent time I used one at all was about a year ago when I was trying to set up a remote desktop solution, but didn’t know what a desktop manager was, what a display server was etc. I only really use Linux from a terminal nowadays.
EDIT: To add to the PATH thing, you severely overestimate the number of programmers who are also power users. It is crazy how many CS majors don’t know how to fix basic issues.
Fair. It’s still intuitive as an XP/7/8 user, but not for a new user. That being said, Windows 11 has made good improvements in moving stuff to the “Settings” app.
In what world does Windows have an intuitive, consistent UI/UX?
You just got used to the mess that Microsoft calls a “user experience”. Gnome and KDE are consistent platforms for their respective apps with Gnome having one of the modt flushed out HIG (Human Interface Guidlines) of any desktop interface to make their DE in the most hands of/out of the way experience for you to focus on your tasks (subjective)
I would’ve agreed when I used i3 and no desktop environment, but now that I’m running gnome on fedora? I completely disagree. The user experience on gnome is far more coherent, intuitive, and less convoluted than on windows.
Being intuitive.
On Windows, features are often a few clicks away from being enabled or modified. Software that you download also does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to changing your settings to what the program needs.
On the Linux distros that I’ve used, way too much setup is required via copying and pasting commands into the terminal. There were times when I completely replaced my path variables instead of appending to them, and that is way harder to do on Windows than Linux. Mistakes like that often lead me to installing a distro 3 times when doing a project, whereas Windows 11 rarely has those issues.
I would argue both have evolved in the opposite way though. Windows has become so unintuitive for me with every version after win 7. Splitting up control panel in many different locations. Multiple methods to remove different applications,… On windows server, it was even worse, and as soon as I moved away from Microsoft’s default built-in crap to third party tools, things actually became much easier.
While with Linux, things worked out of the box for me for a long time already and the process of things make sense a lot times, taking into account the requires minimal knowledge is there.
You just grew up using Windows and are used to its design language – that doesn’t make it inherently intuitive.
If you are fucking with path variables you’re already a power user. The settings for an OOTB Ubuntu or other user-friendly distro are pretty damn intuitive, and if you’re dealing with anything more complex, I personally would far rather use bash or other Linux shells than Powershell.
You’re only partially correct. I did grow up using Windows, but I also dual-booted Ubuntu on every machine that I could. I also used a Macbook exclusively for a few years, and MacOS was way closer to Linux than Windows was back then.
Nowadays, I also use a mix of Powershell and Ubuntu via WSL, depending on what I need. Linux commands usually do less than what I’d like it to, but they work like simple building blocks. Powershell does exactly what I want, but some of these commands are way too freaking long.
However, I’d argue that path variables aren’t for power users. Sure, it’s not for your grandmother, but a decent chunk of people who wanted to run a Minecraft server for their friends probably looked into path variables, and almost all of them looked at firewall settings and port forwarding. Those people will be confused and scared of GUIs and editing txt or bat files. Without a friend walking them through the process, opening a terminal is infinitely more intimidating. Even if someone is fine with learning terminal commands, there aren’t nearly enough checks with Linux commands when doing something potentially destructive compared to Windows. With Windows, you usually get some minor annoyance with hard to find solutions at worst. With Linux, assuming no backups, you’ll end up needing to clean install if you’re trying to learn how to do something.
In all fairness, I haven’t used Linux GUIs often in about 4 years. The most recent time I used one at all was about a year ago when I was trying to set up a remote desktop solution, but didn’t know what a desktop manager was, what a display server was etc. I only really use Linux from a terminal nowadays.
EDIT: To add to the PATH thing, you severely overestimate the number of programmers who are also power users. It is crazy how many CS majors don’t know how to fix basic issues.
I can agree Linux is not intuitive.
I won’t agree Windows is intuitive. Its just not.
My argument? 2 settings panels for more than a decade now.
That’s it
Fair. It’s still intuitive as an XP/7/8 user, but not for a new user. That being said, Windows 11 has made good improvements in moving stuff to the “Settings” app.
In what world does Windows have an intuitive, consistent UI/UX?
You just got used to the mess that Microsoft calls a “user experience”. Gnome and KDE are consistent platforms for their respective apps with Gnome having one of the modt flushed out HIG (Human Interface Guidlines) of any desktop interface to make their DE in the most hands of/out of the way experience for you to focus on your tasks (subjective)
I would’ve agreed when I used i3 and no desktop environment, but now that I’m running gnome on fedora? I completely disagree. The user experience on gnome is far more coherent, intuitive, and less convoluted than on windows.