I use and love debian a lot for servers because it is super stable and relatively lightweight, but I definitely would not recommend it for desktops/notebooks, especially not to people new to linux based systems.

It’s super purist about foss, which means you only get free and open source software (no steam, discord, etc) per default and it uses an older kernel (which makes it more stable, but less feature rich and less compatible with new hardware).

If you use something like fedora, linux mint (as far as I heard) or even ubuntu, your experience would probably be a lot better.

On my private PC, I’m using a GUI/Mouse anyway (browsing, gaming, etc). I have to do 2 clicks to update.

If I use terminal, I have to open terminal, then I have to either login as root or run update as sudo, which means I have to authenticate.

If I already have an open terminal, I might be faster. Otherwise, I’m about as fast as with GUI. In any way, there is no significant benefit to updating software via terminal vs GUI, especially if you are an enduser who does not have significant experience with shells…

For many tasks I agree that a shell is better and faster once you have basic knowledge for it, but it is a reality that many basic users are not used to using a shell or are even scared to use one… And at least since I’ve been use Fedora a couple of years ago, I think using a GUI for basic stuff is reasonably viable without having a significantly worse experience and not comparable with “not using all gears in a car”.

Ok so what exactly is the big advantage you get when installing updates from a terminal as opposed to installing it via GUI? If I read your analogy, one could think it is faster, but I don’t think it is.

Even if it is, for whatever reason, not part of the repository you have installed, you can still go on steam’s website and download the package from there… In other words, the worst case scenario is literally the same experience as you would have on windows…

I just wanted to install steam, but it wasn’t in the package manager list.

Maybe you used Debian, which only allows free software in their default repo? But then you won’t be able to just install it with apt either. But even if it is not in the repository, you could still go on steam website and download the package from there, so literally the same experience as on windows…

You don’t have to do seriously advanced stuff on linux to run into issues without using the terminal.

Like what?

It’s not realistic that you don’t have to use the terminal on linux if you want to do any more than web browsing and some text editing, etc.

10 years ago, or maybe even 5 years ago, I would have agreed with you. Not anymore though, not if you use a half-way beginner friendly distro…

We were talking about normal user stuff that normal users do, not “seriously advanced stuff”… And I agree that most normal users probably don’t want to use terminals because they are not familiar with them. But normal users probably don’t and shouldn’t do “seriously advanced stuff”, no?

Yes, if you are trying to do “serously advanced stuff” (whatever that means), chances are you will probably need a terminal (or a terminal will at least be easier), but you shouldn’t be doing “seriously advanced stuff” unless you know what you are doing anyway…

Unless you have a system without a GUI, you don’t need to open a terminal in order to update or install stuff. There is a GUI for that. And no, you don’t need to build stuff from GitHub for normal user stuff…