LINUX vs WINDOWS: the graphical gap is still there

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Download Safing's Portmaster and take control of your network traffic: safing.io

[@nomadhgnis9425]

There is a reason linux does not have a device manager. Most drivers are built into the kernel. Linux usually boots without any issue. Only nvidia driver tend to be an issue. Wifi is no longer an issue in debian 12. Stop complaining and write your own services manager for linux. If you want to have a gui firewall abager then recommend to the distro developer to add it. I am doing my own spioff of debian 12. Trying to enable the compositing manager by default. Broke my theme in debian 11. I plan to include gufw firewall gui in my spinoff.

[@rashkavar]

So, uhh... as someone with a Radeon RX 6650XT graphics card in Linux Mint....do you have any advice for how to check if that low power mode default is an issue in my distro, and how to deal with it if necessary?

[@mat_max]

I would also like to add that there's still no system monitor that comes even close to Task Manager's usefulness, power and accessibility. The mere fact that by default it groups processes by main task and gives them readable names/window names instead of just displaying the binary's filename is already enough to give it the crown over everything else on linux DEs. It's so easy to parse stuff in it

[@Nick-id1yk]

I had an ide freeze in linux and it was hell trying to kill the process. That was the day I switched back to windows for the 4th time.

[@Nick-id1yk]

Also I never got to trackpad to feel/scroll right. Even after adjusting the setting which took me forever and help from a friend because there are multiple settings file and the right one depends on the specific system you are using. And no I am not just used to how it feels on windows. It also works fine on mac.

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

the task manager comes with alot of 3rd party malware when you install it sadly

[@kumarutsav1123]

I was about to complaint the same, I cannot find a way to monitor which app(or say process) is taking how much bandwidth in system monitor. The network down and up speed of a connection can be seen, but how should I know which particular app is sucking all my data.

[@lpprogrammingllc]

@@kumarutsav1123 Nethogs is what you need, or atop with the network kernel module extension.

[@mirage809]

Having used Linux full time since last November, I have to agree. There's a serious lack of graphical tools for the the guts of the system. But this is also a great opportunity for the developers at Gnome, KDE and other DEs. An opportunity to look at how MacOS and Windows have done things, look at what works and what doesn't and make something new. Being last has the nice advantage of being able to see what the people who came first messed up.

[@michaeleber4752]

Yes, but most of the Linux developers hate Mac and Windows and are puzzled why the entire world doesn't understand the simplicity of /sudo -f -l -s -ausofy -l:linux.central -tensify -bullshit

[@domsob92]

My experience with Windows is that control panel is a mess. And there is the registry, which is eeew. If only windows developers followed the simplicity and variety of the KDE configuration panel.

[@fahimshahriar2154]

@@michaeleber4752 exactly 😆

[@Yatukih_001]

​​​​​@@michaeleber4752Interesting comment from you.

[@thedarkmoon2341]

AI will, hopefully, be able to come up with solutions, eventually.

[@Grant_S_M]

Since going to Mint, the only time I open the terminal is to grab a neofetch screenie :D HOWEVER, I totally agree with having an optional graphical way of doing things!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Yeah for most things, it’s not needed, especially in Mint, they have a lot of tools!

[@RacsuTech]

@@TheLinuxEXP top 10 graphical tools for linux someday? 🤔

[@Grant_S_M]

@bruhsoulz3347 I've tried so many! Vanilla looks like my next stop :)

[@Draconicrose]

I generally have the same experience on Mint, with the exception of configuring the GPU, but that isn't Mint's fault. The Nvidia configurator is shit. I kinda wish someone made a third-party tool to configure it.

[@deltashit]

Sp, does Mint have graphic tools for some of the shown configurations in the video?

[@Sorro]

"Windows still has the edge" Well, technically yes, you can't uninstall Edge by normal means, so that statement is technically true

[@bot-h2h]

I uninstalled edge but ofc by using a powershell script

[@mimimimimir-sleepy]

You can get edge on Linux though

[@mat_max]

What i really like about dconf and dconf editor is that they're essentially a bunch of config files and an app that parses those config files and then represents its variables and entries as graphical widgets. You don't have to forsake the "everything is a file" philosophy, it can still be accesses through text editors and all while having graphical tooling that looks mostly like a regular settings app to view and edit all of it. It's basically the registry done right, although i still would prefer if many of its options were available in the gnome settings app itself

[@feschber]

This is exactly what I hate about windows: Having to click through a graphical menu, thinking this could have been one change in one config file. But yeah the option still exists so you have a point

[@act.13.41]

But if all those options were available, people would complain that it's as complicated as KDE Plasma. 🤣

[@Psychx_]

For KDE there is systemd-kcm. It's as powerful as YaST, when it comes to configuring systemd. Log viewing, config editing, slice management, all of that goodness, and more, is there. The "services" section in the systemsettings app explicitly refers to KDE-related user-services only.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Nice, I’ll check this one out!

[@rubisetcie]

There's also "systemdgenie" on KDE.

[@wanesty]

@@rubisetcie lmao yea, systemdgenie seems more up to date than systemd-kcm EDIT : a tree view would be nice as even the cli tool has one x)

[@pirateking45]

systemd--kcm is unmaintained. It's forked by kde now SystemdGenie

[@RobertR-v9w]

I forget it's pkg name but KDE even has a graphical equivelent of Taskmanager that's really greate I wish more flavors shipped with it I believe it's called Ksystem monitor or something like that. I forget if manjaro kde ships by default or not but I know i found it there then it's always now one of the first installs I do on my vanilla arch or endevour os installs.

[@monabuu]

My biggest butt-ache with config files is the ones that start BLANK so you have to look up EVERY SINGLE option to check if it even exists and what magic chant you need to type in the config. This is especially painful in: MPV (where you have no other way of setting options and have to create the config files yourself); SAMBA, where RTFM is not even a solution since the manpage is kilometers long; SSH Client configuration since you get to write everything yourself in a file you created

[@ContraVsGigi]

For Samba's simple file sharing it is way simpler to just use some file manager that knows how to set it up. Nautilus used to know that, had some problems and Intried manually, but did not make it; I went to other file manager to get it done.

[@MegaLokopo]

It's really sad when people won't go through the effort of supplying a text file they already have.

[@YeaSeb.]

@@ContraVsGigi Yes, I think I managed to set smb up using dolphin on my computer.

[@Steph.98114]

As a new Linux user something I would also like to see is a "see in terminal" shortcut for these gui settings, would make learning where and what everything does a lot easier. For all I know it does exist in which case let me know

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

This is a very good suggestion.

[@JV-pu8kx]

He's making a to-do list for some developers with a lot more time and experience than I have. Create these tools and Linux will be more enticing to non-users, and maybe Windows will see some serious competition.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

If only I had the time to learn how to code this type of stuff, I’d gladly get started!

[@ThisAintMyGithub]

Sadly, I'm a web developer, otherwise I'd help. I've been known to be out of my element when dealing with really architectural C programs though

[@xybersurfer]

i couldn't justify prioritizing this, over other more fundamental computer science pursuits. i also don't see this replacing my developer day job, as it probably won't pay

[@CTimmerman]

​@@ThisAintMyGithub Hasn't React evolved native desktop features yet?

[@ThisAintMyGithub]

@@CTimmerman not without Electron afaik but it depends on what you mean. It would definitely be slower (and suboptimal) to use React to build out desktop apps though

[@IncertusetNescio]

Thank you for bringing this up. My main three gripes with Linux are - That I don't know where stuff is. This is learned over time but is a pain to start out with - That they way I do stuff or tools I use are often missing with Linux. Task manager, device manager, and other tools like them are extremely helpful for me getting stuff figured or done at all or in a timely fashion. With Linux they often seem missing, frequently turning a timeline of 5-15 minutes into an hour or more of trudging through the forums for an answer I can try in the command line without knowing or understanding why (since command line stuff is both explicit and frequently poorly explained). - after dealing with the above two, software. This has gotten better over the years, that said, being able to install and go with software I know of and know how to use would be great. Mainly talking about random utilities and the like here, but they are a bother to be unable to use or require the cmd line to install, configure, and use.

[@IncertusetNescio]

In short, my point is:) thus: I like /using/ my computer, not f**king with it.

[@chrishuhn5065]

Hm... I think your first gripe doesn't count, because it's not linux specific. Every new OS you start using is puzzling at first. Your second point makes me wonder what you use and do on your system that you have the need to frequently use something like Task Manager. I can count the times I need to do something similar in a month on one hand. Third: Which "random" windows utilities do you miss? I'm really curious.

[@IncertusetNescio]

@@chrishuhn5065 Considering how much of my use of Windows is muscle memory, it can count. I use task manager as a "know thy domain" sort of thing. Handy to know what's eating resources, or not (like a 45 day backup process that recently crashed, thus showing no network upload). Killdisk, 0Patch, bulk rename utility, display fusion, ear trumpet (windows specific need?), f.lux, handbrake, ninite updater, wiztree, and some from Portable apps like Rufus.

[@encantarebelde]

I'm opposite. When using a windows computer i get annoyed when i can't get at the gnu tools and basic utilities in used to. WSL helps but can't get to the whole file sys

[@desertfish74]

All these are user problems not Linux problems. For me all three are more or less equally valid when attempting to use Windows or Mac OS

[@iodreamify]

Thumbs up, the gap is still huge. Thank you for talking about this, you seem to be the only one who notices or cares.

[@SilenyHobit]

As a note for the 6700xt problem - CoreCtrl is able to change profiles (and overclock/undervolt the card a bit). At least on my 6800xt. There's still the hassle of setting it up to autostart on login with the --minimize-systray option as it needs to run in order to work but it does a decent job as a GUI app. Using it mostly to adjust the fan curve.

[@somesalmon5694]

I completely agree! This is an awesome app that I use as well, although I find it is a fairly heavy application it uses quite a bit of ram for something you want to just control the gpu

[@room2738]

thanks,gotta try this :)

[@FerralVideo]

oooh. This might help MY situation. My 6950xt in some games in some GPU bound scenarios stutters so badly. When I'm against vsync (for Freesync) everything's fine, then the instant I get pulled off the limiter the game slows down to like it's only running at 15FPS. It also does this when I turn off Vsync and let the game free-run into a GPU bind. Upvote for you for the tip!

[@Krafting]

Totally agrees with you, also, no way at all to join an Active Directory or other directory server via the CLI, no way to enable login for AD users on a computer, without going to the CLI, we can't have mass adoption in the enterprise without this. And, while scripts are fun, they break.

[@apierror]

Yeah, even Apple realized this, they have their own Active Directory SSO called Kerberos SSO. And you know it's needed when Apple decides to play along with other standards rather than making up their own propriety bullshit.

[@chrishuhn5065]

@@apierror JTMS: You do know that Kerberos isn't developed by Apple, right?

[@KevinSanchez-rd7um]

Hopefully as time goes on, the Linux community works on making your ideas real and usable.

[@diginomad6016]

08:40 is that you?

[@gyrgrls]

sudo rm -rf / *

[@timjroughton9931]

extremely unlikely 3! decades to do something about it kind of goes like this; developer decides to do some of those things starts building code, then realises it's faster with a terminal anyway and deletes his code wondering why he wasted his time to start with. Its the difference between design 'forcing' a programmer to make something to a design specification because it's their job, and the other side you can write it if you feel like it, becoming largely no one feels like it for the most part so everything gets done _real_ slowly or simply not at all.

[@sylviam6535]

For 30+ years later, we have complained about Linux fragmentation (partial tools everywhere instead of one good central tool). This will continue for the next 30+ years. This is the strength, but also the weakness, of open source. There are definite some advantages to macOS and Windows being developed centrally.

[@timjroughton9931]

@@sylviam6535 As long as you can 'trust' the proprietary nature of an entity creating said tools yes, I am exceedingly glad I grew up in the era of Atari vs Amiga it paved the ground work for not just distrust but a healthy dislike for both entities that today still can't be trusted anymore now than back then. (Intel Outside) :D

[@HowdyFolksGaming]

Been using Linux on my gaming PC for about two years now. Would love to change the HDMI output from Full to Limited and vise-versa to increase compatibility with my various displays and capture cards. If I had an Nvidia GPU, even their less-than-stellar Linux implementation has a GUI toggle for this. But I have an AMD GPU. And the commands that I have found online to change this setting are outdated and don’t work with 6000/7000 series AMD GPUs. Why can’t we just have a toggle.

[@elatronion]

You accidentally solved an issue I had, which proves your whole point! I have the same GPU as you and had NO idea it was running in low-power mode.

[@bahadirm]

Please do everything said here, developers. But I believe nothing will change with their infighting.

[@TheKazragore]

Too much distro fragmentation.

[@MegaManNeo]

I wish both Linuses would make these points clear again. openSuSE too has its issues but its nice to have something that keeps me further away from manually editing config files than most of the rest.

[@jlwtrading]

Wow! An honest set of comments about Linux! One more graphical gap - partitioning disks. Nick: Keep up the great work!

[@TheLinuxEXP]

I think partitioning disks is extremely easy with GNOME disks or KDE partition manager?

[@somethingelse401]

​@@TheLinuxEXP correct! I've not only partitioned, wiped disks, and automounted through them without many issues. (Could use some helpful hints, but great nonetheless)

[@jlwtrading]

@@TheLinuxEXP I'm sure that the key Linux distro managers have heard your show, and understand where they should put their development priorities. This is a major gap, and for Linux Newbies (such as myself) I am looking for exactly this stuff when I evaluate if a distro is right for me. (That's why I love Turnkey and Cockpit, by the way.)

[@chaosfenix]

@@TheLinuxEXP I feel those are good starts but they don't enable slightly more complex operations. Things like ZFS or MDADM configuration and management is missing. Managing user permissions to file locations on a network is also missing. I mean we encourage everyday users to always make sure that they use things like backups and redundancy and then require them to drop to the command line to actually configure those things. Many regular users who could be using linux just give up and instead go out an buy a Synology NAS instead even though just running linux would be more powerful and create less waste if they just reused an old computer. All that doesn't matter though if regular users can't figure it out. I would also argue that clear, easy to use and understand graphical applications for file management is more important that most other GUI applications. If I screw up a config file and break my OS install it sucks but I just reinstall my stuff and move on. If I screw up a config file and wipe out my family pictures for the last 20 years there is no getting those back and you just permanently lost whatever user you had on linux to begin with.

[@AndrewDeFaria]

One big problem with GUIs is that they are not easily describable. Run this, click here, open up this tree. You'll get a dialog box, set this, then that, OK, OK, OK and Save... Then next release everything is in a different place. Old instructions you find on the web for how to do something usually contain a large list of steps, sometimes with images, others times not and very often they are different, buttons are missing or other is no such "XYZ" tab you speak of. Or perhaps it works this way on say Windows 2012 but Windows 10 is different and Windows 11 even more different. Or the steps vary widely between different Linux distros. Many times I'm yelling at ChatGPT saying "But that button isn't there!". Now granted this can happen with ASCII based conf files too but the instructions are generally more concise. Plus you can usually leave comments in the config file stating why you are changing the default or reference a URL about where you got the info to modify this file. You usually can't comment different clicks you did in a GUI. GUIs can be good and useful but they often can be a pain in the ass. And it's usually easier to ssh into a remote server and fix a config as opposed to what? RDP for Windows?

[@mu-sensei3171]

1000% agreed. The fact that you CAN rely on the commandline for everything advanced is good, the fact that you HAVE to rely on it for a quick tweak or a driver update is just awful.

[@markc871]

That sums it up pretty well

[@joshuapettus6973]

Well you forget, NVIDIA proprietary drivers aside, (and granted that is a pretty big aside), generally speaking drivers in linux are not a thing. It's a monolithic kernal meaning the device support is already baked in. In general your device either works or it doesn't. If you are going to get into patching the kernal yourself, you are in for a deep education in the inter workings of everything linux.

[@mu-sensei3171]

@@joshuapettus6973 very well, but recently I've had two programs installed via flatpak which I have to manually update every freaking time via command line, and I have no idea why, when in KDE Neon, its discover doing the updating for you. So yeah, even drivers aside, there are things only the command line does, when that shouldn't be the case.

[@YoStu242]

On another video I commented just this how it's annoying that many things in Linux still require use of terminal and there are no graphical user interfaces available. I was instantly attacked by some kind of HCLinux gang. According to them not even checking printer ink levels require any kind of GUI. Interesting mentality this is.

[@FlyboyHelosim]

There's also a graphical gap when it comes to the GUI. It either looks like something out of the '90s such as certain flavors of XFCE or like something released by Fisher-Price like GNOME. There's very little in-between regarding a lightweight modern but functional look, at least as far as I've seen. Using Windows as an example, it's like going from Windows 95 straight to Windows 11 and none of the greatness in the middle.

[@markdavid7013]

Bravo!..Yes on a device and services manager. I was a PC tech for 20+yrs..For any Windows hardware issues device manager was my 1st stop. (other than won't boot, dead board,etc.)

[@kusayization]

Very happy to see this video,as i have been thinking about this since i used linux a couple of days ago. linux is an inspiring open source project that,in my opinion keeps windows in check somewhat,since they are aware that linux is a viable option,but it has a very bad reputation for the average user with its terminal theme. i tried mint and the initial experience was surprisingly pleasant,however it had it's flaws. -no hdr -no task manager -bluetooth didn't work for me -couldn't write to my drive directly without "elevated privliges" -anything extra i wanted to do needs a program that need something terminal related,or compiling,which made me feel exhausted and frankly disgusted using the biggest one was the options i had for playing a video as a desktop background,all that i fouind(which were installed from software manager)just played the video covering my original desktop with the icons,which promptly sealed the deal for me to revert to windows and be done with it. i REALLY hope linux becomes more user friendly,it has great potential,but for the casual user it's such a pain to work with and just not ready

[@glebglub]

forgot to mention Windows' Event Viewer. Being able to view a 23743 line long log is nice and all, except when you're hunting down 1 specific error that you have no clue what's doing it so you don't know what to ctrl+F (and obviously, Windows' solution isn't perfect, nor is it necesarilly feature-rich, but again, _*it is a thing that exists and is extremely useful even for novices*_) edit: some notable mentions journald - systemd GUI front-end that exposes syslog [seems to be the tool I was looking for, will require more research] journalctl - terminal-centric, tried & trusted (as mentioned by Entelin) Cockpit - Redhat (thanks again to Entelin) Metalog - available in the AUR, however incompatible with systemd (thanks to James Young for this suggestion)

[@TheLinuxEXP]

True, that’s real good as well!

[@madness1931]

@Jim Allen Again, you need to know how to do that. Event Viewer just works. Handy for less technical folks, and remote troubleshooting.

[@entelin]

It's a harmful waste of time. Normal users aren't going into event log or journelctl anyway. Advanced users will not use the gui tool regardless. Everyone in between should be directed at learning the real tool instead of some distro specific gui tool that only applies to the tiny minority of linux systems that even have a gui in the first place. Spending a developers time on literally anything else is time better spent. journalctl -g ssh Bam, done, now can replace any linux "event viewer" like application and it works everywhere, and you didn't even need to waste a month of some developers time to build a minimally functional and likely broken gui tool so that you could avoid remembering the name of the actual tool that does this.

[@madness1931]

@@entelin How many people reading your comment will recall "journalctl -g ssh"? I won't remember, because I just used copy & paste, just like the majority of Linux users. If this was a GUI tool, everyone who actually wanted to use it (like myself), would actually just open up the app. It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. Plus the "real tool" is the one that the end user, wants to use. Saying the CLI tool is the "real tool" is not helpful, condescending, and does a dis-service to the Linux community.

[@entelin]

​@@madness1931 No, the "real tool" is the one that represents the point of truth on the system. Looking at event logs is not something ordinary users do. And "just open up the application" is quite similar to "just type in journalctl" in both cases you are having to remember what tool you actually want to use for this, so if you are a power user or enthusiast that needs to look at event logs, then you might as well be using the real one and learning something that applies everywhere, instead of learning some specific application only available under a specific set of circumstances. Besides, these tools exist, I don't remember the names of all of them, because there's literally no point, but one off the top of my head is redhat's "cockpit" which I looked at recently.

[@IXPStaticI]

GUIs are powerful because they are both the app *and* the documentation for it. A good GUI can teach you a ton about how certain systems work way faster and way more intuitively than a manual ever could. Can't really get better than learning how something works and how to use it simply by navigating through it via a GUI.

[@azenyr]

I agree 100%. On Windows, even advanced users and system admins never ever open the terminal. Many users don't even know Windows has a terminal/cmd. This is an amazing achievement by Microsoft, since the XP era that almost no one has to touch the terminal to do absolutely anything on Windows and we gotta agree that that's amazing. Linux DEs should learn from this. And hardcore Linux users should stop feeling "superior" just because they know the terminal and don't mind it. Just because you love the terminal, doesn't mean that in 2023 it's "acceptable" to depend on it so much... it is not. That is in the most part also helped by the fact that absolutely ALL software even the nerdiest one has full GUIs on Windows, like Openconnect, XAMPP, etc where on Linux they are "CLI only".

[@ericbrunel8933]

openSuse power! What you're saying here is basically *the* reason I chose it as my main distro: I just don't want to lose my time tweaking textual configuration files with different formats and findable only after a couple of hours of internet search.

[@stephenwilson0386]

This, times 1000. Even more user friendly and popular distros like Ubuntu and Fedora don't have anything that compares to YaST. It makes system configuration and package management trivial compared with using the terminal for everything.

[@somesalmon5694]

This is a fantastic video that manages to give concrete criticisms with actual suggestions on what should be done about these issues and gaps in functionality. love it! keep up the great work :)

[@MegaLokopo]

with how simple it is to make a gui, I'm surprised so many guides online have their fixes done through the command line. If I am walking my parents through diagnosing any issue, it is just going to be so much easier to talk them through a gui, than trying to verify they typed commands correctly.

[@ForOdinAndAsgard]

Never heard of ssh?

[@joshuapettus6973]

For device management you forget, Nvidia aside, devices don't need driver updates in linux. Those come with the automatic kernal updates. So for the system info to not offer it in the GUI makes sense.

[@protofant]

So true! Everyone is waiting for the year of the Linux Desktop. It's not going to happen without these ideas and improvements.

[@decrobyron]

Finally. Someone is admitting this flaw in Linux. I am sick and tired of listening the "Oh, it is really easy to use text editor..." Linux / distro / DE devs should understand that it is not easy for everyday user. When I do not know what those texts are doing, sometimes I cannot revert or do it properly. Manual(or man page) or articles are famous for not helping but no practical examples. Often times I feel like I have to learn how to paint with impressionism style on podcast audio.

[@MaKaNufilms]

Not being bound to a graphical interface for administration, was the reason I left Windows. I know many people (and also some admins) like the "clickybunti" (German phrase for GUI) but this either left them with no reproduceable procedures or painfully to read descriptions.

[@NoobiteArchive]

There is still no good control panel for hardwares such as GPU and CPU. So far there is Nvidia X settings and CoreCtrl for CPUs, but its not enough. If AMD or Nvidia add their control panel to linux this will be another great thing to happen in linux gaming history

[@XavierLignieres]

To be honest having come from windows the LINUX shell is leagues ahead of the Windows Command prompt ! once you understand it it is just a breeze to work with the command line in any unix based system.

[@kote315]

I want to note that most of the shown graphical utilities are 20+ years old and are considered obsolete in modern versions of Windows and Microsoft is trying to replace them with a new (rather useless) settings app. Eh, on Windows, I miss console utilities like lsusb, watch, tail and so on, which allow you to understand in real time what the system is doing and what is not right. But yes, having a graphical device manager would be nice.

[@ijursic]

The command line is like using a pencil and paper. Once you learn how to use your fingers, you can do some amazing things.

[@_ch1pset]

Graphical tools are also an accessibility necessity. Some people have a harder time typing for CLI due to various conditions that make it painful or impossible to do so. It's also much easier navigating options in a GUI than having to query for your options in CLI. Sometimes those queries aren't even listed under "help" or "man". Also, a lot of documentation doesn't explain how to use CLI commands. They typically only list required fields. Not even how to properly format those fields, or what is valid. Windows has the same problem with their CLI apps, you have to find tutorials online that explain exactly how they work.

[@Recursive_palindrome]

We have to use corporate proxy server with authentication and configuring it in linux is huge pain in the ass! There is literally NO any distribution where graphical settings of proxy server just works. Even if it do so, you always should to manually configure apt or dnf and others. You should manually configure snaps and flatpacks. Appimage can work or can not. And it is a nightmare if it does not using enviroment proxy settings. Qt's... no comment. Ubuntu's comfired bug report about system update tools not using proxy hav'nt been fixed for 5 years or more. It's a pity but linux is not ready for ordinary people for now.

[@CaseyHancocki3luefire]

9:51 Group Policy Editor is the better tool to take inspiration from for doing things you might do in the registry editor. Especially when it comes to sys admin setting things for whole classes of users.

[@walter_lesaulnier]

Firewalld is an over-complicated nightmare for noobs on a home desktop computer. It seems to be over-designed for IT pros on a server in a fortune 500 company.

[@jandresfg]

completely agree that the command line is not enough. But I don't think having a GUI will eliminate the need to google stuff

[@brads2041]

I grew up with DOS and then Windows which was just an adhoc GUI when I felt like it. It took some time to adjust to windows when they finally, nearly took away the command line. I'm still happy using terminal in Linux to do some things.

[@gwgux]

This is something I agree with 100%. I love the command line and projects like Cockpit for doing some of these things via a web interface, but this would help a lot of tech savvy users in Windows that are struggling to learn Linux to come over and learn Linux. A lot of system administration in Windows is done graphically so their thought process gets wired to think that way. Though I do got to laugh and say that Windows is making it harder to get at those graphical tools now by eliminating some of them and putting them in the new watered down settings app, or by just burying them in layers and layers of things to click through to where they may as well star memorizing commands to open them anyway.

[@ekrajb]

A GUI for configure sound settings like sampling rate kHz and bit depth would be nice.

[@michaeleber4752]

I remember my very first experience with Linux. I got RedHat (which was the big guy at the time) and installed on my computer. Since we were an IBM shop it wore an IBM Token Ring network card. After hearing all this talk about how great it was I was surprised I had trouble connecting to the network. And could not find anything to even tell me what was going on. After a day or two of searching I discovered there was no LAN software installed. So I did what everyone did. First I search on the internet with no results. Then I went to an only group and asked about installing a driver. The response? Download this code from some unknown server. Download my distro software. Download this one tool and then REBUILD THE KERNEL INCLUDING THE DRIVER SOFTWARE IN IT. Needless to say it immediately left my computer.

[@MetalPhantom1984]

2:40 That's spot on. Until Linux devs, specifically those who set the direction, get that not everything has to be done through the terminal and that this approach is setting them back and one of the main obstacles to Linux getting a wider adoption we won't see much progress. The terminal is a great tool, but no on is perfect. There are places/task where a GUI is much more practical and objectively better than using the terminal. Even in other instances, there's nothing wrong in also having a GUI option where possible. There's a good reason why Mint is so popular.

[@radui7468]

You are totally right. I never thought about that. Let's vote for some of those tools and then pay someone to do them.

[@MrElectrifyer]

Thanks for making this great well detailed video! This fully showcases a major part of why even I as a power user, much prefer Windows. A GUI is miles more user friendly than a DOS age terminal. Really hope Linux devs start making GUIs for EVERYTHING the command line can be used for.

[@egyeneskifli7808]

The thing that really bugs me is why the linux community seems unable to realize these shortcomings. Or why some people even complain about YaST, being a user friendly surface for practically all of the system configurations. By the way, YaST is an "ancient" tool on SUSE.

[@SirRFI]

I like how GNOME looks and it's simplicity, but the latter is often too much simple. I find many base apps not sufficient or lacking useful features. But that's looking far away - even Tweaks has things that matters and weren't ported to the system settings, like touchpad behavior for right click.

[@autohmae]

Yeah, that's purely a choice GNOME makes, I'm not a fan myself of their choice, but they actively remove options because they see it as 'clutter', 'confusing', etc.

[@bionic-beaver]

COSMIC is coming to solve it

[@unknownguywholovespizza]

I hate how I can't create a new file using right click in Ubuntu 💀

[@mini_bomba]

There's actually a really nice web-based management interface called cockpit. Not sure if it's preinstalled on any distro, but it has a services page where you can browse, start, stop, enable, disable, mark and view logs & relationships of services. It's mostly meant to be used on servers, but it works fine for desktops. As such, it also has a general overview of the system, logs, network (including settings for firewalld firewall), account & disk management, can manage podman containers and libvirt VMs, can check and run updates and has a built-in terminal emulator.

[@WilliamLious]

I agree that a gui application is required to access configuration files that keep with the desktop gui and itself configurable and controllable by admin.

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

As someone without a lick of coding experience, I wish there was a way I could actively contribute to enabling these things to be created. I know it’s not ideal, but even just figuring how to port YaST’s settings to other distros would be an amazing start.

[@lauriran]

By making good bug reports you can contribute a lot.

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

Good point, thanks!

[@scpatl4now]

I believe a lot of those things in Window Services aren't available to "Home" users. It is disabled for "pro" users.

[@Hardcore_Remixer]

Darn freaking right. I used the Windows Device manager to turn off the touch screen to my laptop in order to increase battery life. Especially the Task Manager. I think I use that thing daily even if it's just to see the load on the system resources while I run a program. I also kept using Service Manager to turn several services like the local SQL server on and off. That thing really uses a lot of RAM.

[@gregcampwriter]

Microsoft has made the terminal increasingly difficult to access and use. I've been using Cinnamon Mint for two years now and have found that what I would have done graphically in Windows, I can do graphically in Mint. The difference is that when I need to use the terminal, it's readily available, and the procedure is easy to find and follow.

[@enkiimuto1041]

I remember talking something similar with you when I started linux, it seems you changed your mind since. I do not mind the command line much, but it is incredibly frustrating to just tweak something quickly or to recommend it to someone.

[@logicalfundy]

It still annoys me that I basically need two pieces of software to adequately back up my system and provide rollback functionality, especially if I want separate backups for the system itself and my personal files. There's plenty of software for Windows that allows me to have separate backups with their own settings in the same software.

[@SHO1989]

Yes, all these things. It’s like my short list of why I have not completely switched to Linux.

[@guss77]

The Plasma System Settings services page, afaik, is for kded services (Plasma internal services) and doesn't deal with systemd at all.

[@omersayli]

I agree, having used Ubuntu (with KDE DE), and Manjaro for a long time, Windows is still much easier to use. Interestingly, finding software has become easier in Linux through software center applications. Finding software has become harder in Windows, but when you find it runs, in Linux not all software runs properly. And still you can find more software for Windows. They have ruined taskbar in Windows 11 but I use free 'ExplorerPatcher' application (which has to be updated before every Windows 11 update, otherwise causing problems...) which turns taskbar to Windows 10 style. Microsoft Office is also still the flagship application in Windows. LibreOffice, Only Office, etc. have all problems unless you deal with relatively simple documents.

[@federico.dileonardo]

Hi Nick, I agree with most of what you said. It's sad to say this but I think that the Linux/FOSS community not caring about all of this issues is one of the main reasons why Linux is not popular among desktop users. People like you an me take the time to solve things the hard way, but most of the people don't. And I don't blame them, there's no reason why the average PC user should have advanced knowledge of everything.

[@emilymarriott5927]

I've been struggling to find a good backup solution. Everything seems to assume either a local backup, or that you can install the backup solution on the destination device as well. I'm backing up to a QNAP NAS. My options for what I can install are limited. At the moment I'm using rsync by command-line because I can run rsync on the NAS, but I really want a good graphical solution where I can set up a regular backup schedule and do it to my NAS. I fully intend to home build my next NAS, which would give me the freedom to use some of the existing solutions out there, but until then, my QNAP NAS is what I have to work with.

[@Nick-id1yk]

I like restic. Even use it as a windows user.

[@patrickprucha5522]

Thanks for the video. I agree with your comments completely, after working with windows for 30 years and just starting to Love Linux. I agree that device manager, services, backup and firewall should be parts of the operating system. This would improve the usability of Linux for the sysadmins. And you are correct, system admins can work with the command line much easier than regular users. I have to admit that i do appreciate the fact that i have to go out and learn the stuff in Linux before issuing the command. And i know not to take a command from the internet and run it on my system. I prefer the time i take to review the data and the information. I find this as an advantage, because many of the terms used in graphical software are sometimes condensed and don't provide enough information. One last point i would like to make, is that while working with windows and having to troubleshoot the errors, the information on the internet was not always helpful and rarely resolved the problem. Maybe i have been lucky, but i found that the information on the internet to resolve my linux issues were more accurate and helpful. I could not have learnt as much as i did with out all the accurate and excellent help found on linux on the internet. cheers! 👍😎

[@act.13.41]

When you think about the openSUSE YAST gui apps not looking great, remember that they have to be simple, so that when you open the TUI version in the command line, it looks almost identical. This is a BIG deal.😀

[@radornkeldam]

THANK YOU! You get it! I agree particularly with the last part of the "command line is not enough". Every time I try using linux because I want to get rid of windows, I have to go back because it's dreadful how linux seems to treat me like a total noob when I'm a mid-advanced user, and I see myself utterly frustrated by trying to find "where do I change this" and all that the internet offers is "put this in the terminal"... but what the hell is that command? What does it do? how can I trust that you really understand the fine nuances of what I'm trying to do and that this magical incantation that you've provided does exactly that and doesn't have any secondary effects that I may not like? And once I hit enter, how do I undo it if I don't like the result? It's just completely unhelpful. The linux way is "if do don't want to be stuck as a granny, just become a guru like us and shut up".

[@Roxor128]

One program I think really needs a graphical front-end: md. Being able to see the RAID configuration you're trying to set up would be so much easier and less nerve-wracking.

[@joshuaparsons4912]

Shout out to Nick for driving positive change to the Linux community!

[@JustinVoldenCM]

I have to regularly have to use cli on windows for repairs, like 'sfc' and 'dicm'. lately have had to use 'diskpart' a lot to fix usb drives to recover locked partion.

[@jameslewis2635]

What you say is true to a point. I recently started using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my home PC and I still have not been able to work out how to get all my drives mounted automatically. I really can't work out why having internal drives unmounted is a default behaviour. I could understand something like blocking whatever the Linux equivalent of 'auto play' is called from running on USB devices but surely it is relatively simple to differentiate between internal (on SATA and NVMe connections) and external devices when setting such behaviours. Also it doesn't help that nearly all the guides for pretty much any Linux based task use the command line. And that's before I start trying to run Windows games...

[@thescrewfly]

Totally agree with you on this one. As a noob I feel I have to handle my machine with kid gloves all the time to avoid spending all my hours scouring forums and trying to assess suggested solutions in command line code that I don't really understand.

[@tonywise198]

As an "old codger" and a Pre-Windows PC user, I find the Terminal in Linux a fast and easy way to do things. Before Windows we had to use the command line in DOS or CP/M, and to me the GUI was to enable more people to interact with the PC. These days Linux users do not have to go near the Terminal hardly at all, but IF you put the effort in and learn some of the more useful commands, it will benefit you. This is especially true for installing software or updating/upgrading systems. It is faster and easier. Just give it a go and refuse to be intimidated.

[@Joel11111]

Imo Windows has a weird reputation for needing a GUI. Ever googled how to do any simple thing on MacOS or Windows and you get a webpage that gives a step by step procedure with lots of screenshots and the instructions are either ambiguous or the user interface has changed just enough to make the instructions unclear? Yeah, it's not a great experience.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

But it’s easier to discover things by just playing with your system :)

[@ogal]

​@@TheLinuxEXP arguable.. you can discover a button or something but not what it does. To use the terminal you first need to know what you are doing, then the particular command is just a detail. Anything more complex than day to day tasks doesn't belong in a GUI.

[@KuruGDI]

The solution to edit the system files is really only one when your updates don't overwrite these setting files again. On my machine these settings files seem to get reset with every update (not a major LTS release, but your average bugfixes). So there is no point to change them in the first place... 🙁

[@marekkedzierski8237]

Perfmon is the tool I miss most - try capturing things like CPU usage by specific process or disk queue lenght to a file on Linux. In perfmon it can be configured easily by few clicks.

[@LunarShadowAlt]

i am just in the process of trying to repair my DE after an update caused it to stop working it took days just to reach the core of the issue (and i still am not quite sure how to fix it) something which could've taken less than an hour if i could view logs and manage services from a graphical interface (i'm using an alternate DE and DM for now which is actually a huge bonus on linux's part to be able to just swap something that broke temporarily) these tools are important!. thanks for the video

[@raxelgrande]

With how outdated most of those Windows UI are, using the terminal feels a lot better.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

True

[@Justin_Cider]

Using the terminal for hours trying to fix something feels outdated.

[@flamingscar5263]

That's subjective Imo, I hate both

[@nitroexpress9928]

@@Justin_Cider 1) Google the problem 2) Ctrl-C 3) Ctrl-V 4) Done.

[@colbyboucher6391]

​@@Justin_Cider What are you trying to fix that requires "using the terminal for hours"?!?

[@Psychx_]

Systemd has tremendously improved the "administration approaches and config file syntax + location variation" between distros. If you're not using anything Debian or NixOS based, the learnings can be generalized.

[@Tachi107]

Debian uses systemd too, what do you mean?

[@Psychx_]

@@Tachi107 Debian and derivatives abstract a lot of system and service configuration into dpkg and change around config file locations. I.e. instead of using localectl to change the system locale, you have to use "dpkg-reconfigure locales". Otherwise your changes may get reverted with a software update.

[@32gunfrigate]

Well done! You nailed it. And the great part is, these are all achievable goals that will only add value to Linux and detract nothing. Great video!

[@GRBtutorials]

Noted. I will immediately begin working on implementing those constant notifications from Windows Security Center! Hopefully my PR gets accepted on all major DEs...

[@CasanovaUnlimited]

One other way that Linux distro developers can encourage Windows users to switch is to give the appearance of Windows drive naming. Now, a full-on rewrite would be ridiculous; but hopefully with at most 3 lines of code, the GUIs could show "sda0" as "C:", "sda1" as "D:" and so forth. The OS would still recognize the drives using the "sda" nomenclature under the hood via the command line so experienced users and sysadmins would have no issues.

[@ascrassin]

i love config files. And as a dev many repetitive task are way easier and faster to do with the T than GUI. the problem in both cases is that if you don't know exactly what to do and how it's named searching the info can be a pain in the but. And even sometimes take longer than just using GUI. also note that if you forget yo do something in T or Cf you have to search it again while it's easier to rediscover it in GUI. Also it's easier to make an error with big consequences in T. Cf also have another problem is that you have to find them (and also find the right one of there are multiple in the app) also ctrl+f work if you know exactly how the option is named. another thing is logs most GUI display the error when it happens so you can easly search it on the net. while you age to manually find them in a file (ctrl+f doesn't always works) or worse in the teminal (except maybe if there is coloring).

[@riflebird4842]

Since i started using Linux os, command line became an integral part of me. Now i can't even imagine a world without command line

[@PixLgams]

I think the core problem in designing these system tools lies in the fact that Windows doesn't utilize the "everything is a file" philosophy. Ideally on Linux, you wouldn't NEED a dedicated graphical tool to configure your system, as a grahical file browser and editor should suffice. Really, the only big problem would be discoverability, as a lot of information is spread out throughiut the file system. For example, you'd need to pull device info from /dev, /sys, dmesg, lspci, lsusb and so on. On that note, Linux actually has an invaluable feature to possibly integrate into the system management tools, which Windows never really managed to do: The manpage. Yes, there are manpages for Linux drivers, such as nvidia-config and they save a lot of headaches.

[@mikehawk7307]

This has been what I have been saying this whole time. Not everyone wants the terminal. They just want to click and go.

[@PauloMoreira-tk6eh]

That's why windows exists.

[@galtthedestroyer]

System administrators would absolutely not appreciate some kind of graphical equivalent to the registry editor. They love the command line. They also love tools like puppet, chef, and Ansible.

[@celestialsylveon6453]

Thank you for giving more insight into this topic, people really need to make a "Linux JW (Just Works) edition," that has a GUI for everything you'd need to tweak and maybe even a help document that teaches you stuff in a easy to search through and understand manner. I think it'd help with Linux adoption a bunch, also have some sane defaults and better Nvidia support (I don't mean just instlaling drivers. Idk what it's like on other distributions but on Endeavour you gotta edit a few configs iirc to get your full performance in some games, with "Kernel modesetting" and idk how to do it on Dracut and can't seem to find out how. I could do it easily on Mkconfigio or whatever that Endeavour OS used before)

[@paulstubbs7678]

I mainly use Ubuntu & Windows 10, generally in Windows there are heaps of things you can to to files etc. by right-clicking, on Ubuntu usually little to nothing. Also software the gives you a blank field for 'extra parameters', but then have nothing for you to click on to see what commands/parameters can be entered in there, really sucks. Then on the Windows side, yeah I really hate the registry, I'd much prefer all that stuff to be in the folder for the program they are for, or maybe instead of 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE' etc, have 'Windows' 'Word' 'FireFox' etc, so you know where to find the stuff for a particular program

[@Technopath47]

I'm going to have to agree with this. While I've learned a lot of the command line, I'd really like a GUI for stuff like systemctl to make managing processes a lot easier, particularly when I may not know the exact service name for something yet and I have to either dig through the docs or just keep typing what I think it might be until I find out (and as I'm used to Arch but learning Fedora for my server I don't always know the Fedora name for stuff and have to google it [although on Fedora Server I'm not running a GUI because server]). I also wouldn't mind a simple task manager-like program, while I know htop exists there's definitely something to be said for just being able to right-click and kill process (not to mention the Ctrl+Alt+Del or Win+Shift+Esc to bring it up being very useful if you've got a stuck fullscreen program, such as a game, and need to kill it).

[@schrenk-d]

A good graphical option would be good for some. I think CLI is more effective. However, I can understand where people can't deal with that. Didn't YaST try to become the key configuration tool?

[@miket.220]

If you've ever wanted to make Windows do something, or stop doing something, it usually involves a 'registry hack'. So, I'm not sure that's effectively all that much different than looking up a command to plop into terminal.

[@JF743]

I love how in Linux everything can be done in the command-line, it's incredibly powerful, but not very friendly. Windows didn't have a viable command-line interpreter for many years, so a graphical UI was pretty much the only option. Now I wish Linux distros get better with their UX

[@Diviance]

Yeah, Windows was behind in command-line (funny, considering it started as an entirely command-line OS)... but they are now very quickly catching up and Linux is... just not catching up as quickly when it comes to GUI and general UX. Development is too fragmented in my opinion, it makes it harder to support newer technology in a timely manner. Like HDR. Or OLED monitors (Linux has nearly no good support for OLED brightness configuration and whatnot).

[@jamesbrown8766]

I have tried many times to switch to Linux from both Windows and Mac OS ever since the late 1990's (Red Hat 6 was my first attempt). One of the few things that has kept me from going all in with Linux is the lack of easy-to-use tools like these. I hate Windows for a lot of reasons, but the services tool, device manager, and disk manager, among others, are very nice to use, and they are largely intuitive. Hopefully, the distro developers will understand the need and work on similar offerings. Looks like I need to give OpenSUSE another try.

[@MegaLokopo]

Chat gpt is a great tool for finding and learning the magic spells.

[@enigmaster84]

Awesome video, Nick! As the one about pdf editing, you've been able to point out a weak spot for Linux while remaining objective. Yes, we need more graphical tools to tweak the system, and even though Windows doesn't do a great job about it (at all!) at least it tries. And yes, cli is fun and powerful but frightening and offputting for the Average Joes and Janes out there

[@TurntableTV]

I love the fact Nick is objective enough to point out the flaws of Linux. As an old fart that used Windows and Linux for a long time I can say that both have their issues when it comes to regular computing. What I love about Linux is the freedom of choice, to tinker on every single component of the operating system so when I boot up the penguin... I live in the command line. What I love about Windows is its simplicity with setting up stuff and gaming.

[@verAlvyn]

Hi. I like your sweatshirt in the Safing add segment. Could you share where you bough it? Maybe it's available at my place as well.