Linux

Yes, generally you can. I run Linux Mint and can count the number of times that I HAD to use the terminal. There are plenty of times where I choose to use the terminal because it's faster though.

over the years i've had trouble with the various app stores like Discover and Pop!_Shop which for me led to the use of the terminal. other than that there is the occasional permissions issue that may have a graphical solution but i've always used chown on the command line.

I rarely touch my terminal and do so only because I am already familiar with it. I should use it more. I don't think its any more necessary to use the terminal in linux than it is in windows for a computer user. I consider zorin the most user friendly and mainly because its out of the box (when its installed it has software already on that fits for most things people want to do with a computer.)

I've been using Bazzite for a year without ever touching the terminal. I came from Windows.

It depends.

A 2-5 year-old laptop, you want to web browse, maybe watch some videos, use google docs or open office, you probably never need a terminal

If it's a really new laptop or you want to get the most out of video drivers and push it harder, you'll probably need to be ready for some light terminal crap. Gets a little janky if you have a dual-video-card setup. Nothing hard to handle, but if you're not looking to have to handle anything...

I think the numnber of available packages is better on the Debian side. Mint or Kubuntu run newer hotter stuff, debian runs older more stable stuff.

I'd say 90% of usage can be done without the terminal especially if you just use Linux to browse the web or check email or other things that are mundane.

Anything past that, there is a good chance you'll have to use the terminal. That said, I think its easier than ever with lots of people making the switch and asking questions on Lemmy or other forums.

I use Fedora Workstation. I do use the terminal, each morning I install my updates by typing "sudo dnf upgrade" and enter the password. When that is done I type "syncthing" to start that service. The rest of the day I don't touch the terminal.

I could install the updates through the "software store" but terminal is faster and no reboot is required, afaik.

Once in a while I do update an app which is almost as easy. Download the rpm file (typically there is a link in the app that needs updating) open terminal, cd Downloads, ls, sudo dnf install "package name", password, exit.

For context, I started on Linux last April. Previous "laptop" was an android tablet with a physical keyboard and mouse. I did buy a used Thinkpad and install Fedora myself which was very easy.

My 75 year old father, who isn't a techie, can handle this. Your Window buds should be able to as well.

Nope. Every Linux distribution I’ve used has needed access to command line at some point. If anything goes awry people will always give you steps how to fix it from command line.

Now I’m not saying all this couldn’t be done graphically, but you very rarely find steps that way.

My gf and I are on Kubuntu. The only CLI she needs is to start her G13 kb, otherwise she is GUI only, even when I set up her machine it was all through GUI. Myself, I do CLI stuff cause it is often easier for me, lsblk/lsusb/mount broken ntfs drives(Ok this one I need after the occasional reboot til I get a new media drive), but I don't NEED to use it except for my G13 kb and the broken ntfs drive for now. ymmv.

I kind of 'force-moved' my wife to Fedora about 2 years ago, and she had never seen the terminal until last week. I saw she was about to open 'discover' to update everything, and I stopped her, opened the terminal and ran a dnf update, one 'put your password in there', and she was looking at it as if it was magic. Can you use it without the terminal entirely? Pretty sure you can. Now, should you?

Just lie and say they will never need to touch the terminal, then help them out when they need to and eventually they will see its not a big deal

I'm torn on this discussion. Full disclosure, I don't really understand GUIs and get confused with icons and such. I'm a command-line person and have been for decades. I'll use image editors and IDEs and so on but they often leave me frustrated.

That said, I totally get that other people are not the same, and that's completely valid. If a regular task can only be done from the command line then there's an opportunity to fill in the missing piece, the GUI. It's not a waste of time, even if the GUI is "less efficient" - it's what a lot of people find comfortable.

Where I fall on the other side is the rise of ChatGPT and its friends. People are overwhelmingly positive about typing their problems into a text box, but when the response is "paste this into a terminal window and press enter" they bail out. They're happier to go through a dozen screenshots showing them where to click through menus to get to the option visually, even if they have to try multiple times because the GUI changes with the direction of the wind and the terminal stays consistent.

I know at least two people who have been using Ubuntu as a daily driver for years and have never (as in, ever) touched the terminal.

Yes, there are several distros that come with many things prepackaged. See Fedora, CachyOS, and Mint for examples.

I think Fedora is an excellent choice. It has up to date packages and its integration with KDE Plasma is pretty good.

Not a chance. Someone else can easily, but I wouldn't be able to resist.

The allergy to CLI is always strange to me. Computers didn't always have mice, or GUIs, and people had to learn them when they came around. It's like saying "I want to ride a bike but I don't want to learn how." After a certain point, I don't really know what to say to something like that. You have to learn how to do anything that is new to you. That doesn't make it bad, or even necessarily difficult...but anything you don't know will be unfamiliar, and one just has to be OK with that for a while until it's not anymore. I think the usability of most mainstream distros is right where it should be. GNOME and KDE have done a very good job of it (edit: barring some very important accessibility concerns, which the GNOME and KDE teams have both shown to be open to learning from and improving on).

Yes it is possible. I never need the terminal. If you are interested, you can usually find a GUI way if you look for one. Some people just don't look, then tell people there is no GUI for it. Not very helpful for newbies.

For those not into usability, different people work in different ways. Visual workers are not the same as text workers. So for some, CLI has poor usability and productivity. For lots of things I do, there isn't a CLI anyway.

I use Kubuntu these days. It could be better.

I installed ubuntu for my father in 2010. He has no idea how PCs work, and he's been fine with it. And we are not even close.

Less needed than on Windows.

If you are just doing word processing, browsing the web, and playing video games then absolutely. Yes.

There have been gui tools available to install packages, configure networking/wifi, and manipulate files. For a long time now. Especially with the integration of Flatpak and snaps into gui-based package managers (like pop shop) it has become quite simple for any "regular", non-technical user to manage the basics and even the intermediates of any system (depending on the distro).

Where things will likely fall short is with troubleshooting. But to solve that we would need to build something like the windows troubleshooter. But with so applications owned by so many different groups it would be difficult/near impossible to write a troubleshooter to integrate them together.

Though I am also a bit of a hackerman so I probably also don't realize how much I use the terminal for normal things.

I almost asked this exact question today. I installed Ubuntu (Studio) for the first time and almost immediately needed to do some CLI shit because there's no GUI option to enable jumbo frames. I don't want to learn CLI. I just want to escape Windows.

Been using Fedora Workstation as my daily driver on my main gaming rig (and casual work machine) for over 7 years now; in the early days, yes CLI was necessary but I actually can't remember the last time I needed the CLI to configure anything on that machine. I use it to ssh into my homelab and that's it.

I also installed Fedora on a Pixlebook Go Chromebook (I am using to type this now) a year or so ago, I use this machine for casual web browsing, and playing games via GeForce Now (Excellent btw), and beyond the slightly complex effort to get Fedora stable on it at the start, I have not touched the terminal since then, and that includes a couple of upgrades from F41 to F43.

Honestly the main distro's are more than ready for the 'grandma' test, from about six months ago my eldest daughter (21) is rocking Fedora on her ageing laptop which I installed for her when she complained that it was 'getting slow' on Windows, she is an artist, has zero interest or knowledge of computers and has not come back since for any issue, she uses it daily.

Can I? Yes. Will I? No.

Some things are just faster to do via terminal so I learned to use it over GUI for some scenarios.

All modern OS's require the terminal at some point (except iOS).

To your bonus question: portage

SUSE has had graphical administration tools for literally decades. Somehow people always forget that.

Yes.