You can’t blame MAC, Windows to spoil users by GUI. They chose Mac, Windows just because of it’s GUI. So thinking that Mac,Windows are evil because they make people think differently is BS. They also have a right to choose what kind of interface they want.

I bet, just like you are thinking them of spoilt people, they might also be thinking the same about you. The user has the freedom to choose GUI and CLI. No one can command them or bad-mouth them just because anyone does not like the option they opted for

“Fight with the command line?” See, THAT’S what’s wrong with desktop operating systems today, Ubuntu included. People seem to think using a command line is some abhorrently unwieldly thing to use. And its because of operating systems like Mac OS, Windows, and Ubuntu. Before you say “Yeah they’re hard” I’ll tell you that I’ve been using command lines since I was 3. If I was able to know DOS at 3, adults should be able to handle a command line now. The average user loses out on getting the most ot of their system. And I can assure you, before GUIs came about the average user was a CLI user.

The efficiency of computer use went to crap when people fooled themselves into thinking they were more effective using their mouse than a keyboard. Sad fact is that a CLI user can out-produce a GUI user. Do you know how many CLI equivalencies I can find on Linux? Web browser, IM client, MU* client, music player, etc. Typing commands is not hard. And people like you and CEO overestimate the learning curve by far.

I was also disputing the “fact” that CEO made about people doing stuff on Ubuntu was equivalent to command line work. It sure as hell is NOT. A GUI can’t touch the usefulness of a command line at all.

I am amazed how you say that Ubuntu takes away the power of CLI from you. You have the command-line with all the debian packages right in the official repos. If you think something is missing, get it. Frankly, I would not recommend you to use
Ubutu for dev purposes. Dev was not the target for the Ubuntu Devs. Point said.

Tomorrow go and tell me the A to Z of your car before using it. Take out the steering wheel and operate the engine by hand.

That’s all. Enjoy!

Your argument is very flawed. It’s basically saying “Because Ubuntu found a generic way to do common tasks from a GUI it must be superior to all the others.”

The problem with Ubuntu is that it puts too much stake in GUIs, which any person with any technical knowledge (Clearly not YOU or the people quick to label Ubuntu’s critics as “whiners” simply because they can’t take the truth that Ubuntu is hardly the best distro.) can tell you that a GUI doesn’t allow a user to get specific about HOW to do things. They’re very generic. While GUIs may work well for your hypothetical dopey 14-year old, they will never, ever, get the most capability out of the task they’re meant to perform.

A command line on the other hand, offers hundreds of tools and capabilities a GUI simply can’t by their design. A CLI offers stdin, stdout, stderr and pipes (Something that a GUI by its very nature cannot implement.), commands that offer dozens if not hundreds of arguments and features that a gUI can’t take advantage of.

Name me a task you think a GUI can do and I’ll show you a command in a CLI that can do it better.

And no, it doesn’t take “years” to learn this stuff. Its as easy as reading the manual or even peering onto sites that aren’t afraid to chuck their reader into a command line.

You can’t do with Ubuntu what I can do with Arch. You can’t do with any DE what you can do with any UNIX shell.

And labelling us “whiners” is a classic example of losing the argument via ad hominem. You didn’t offer any real argument as to why you can do more powerful things from a GUI in Ubuntu than a shell in all the other superior alternatives to Ubuntu.

Am I against GUI’s? No! In fact, I’m typing this from KDE 4.3 right now. GUIs make things simpler. But do they make things more effective, efficient, or powerful? No! GUIs can’t touch the level of flexibility and automation that a command line can. You can’t script a GUI (The closest you get are “Nautilus” scripts, which are actually shell scripts that accept arguments from Nautilus. It’s still being run in the background from a command line the user cannot see.). You can’t send the results of one operation directly to another program. And you simply cannot do tasks to the relative scale of a command line with a GUI.

Any technical person (Obviously not YOU.) will tell you that the more abstraction between the user and his system exists, the more problems will arise as the user has less and less contol over what the system is actually doing. This is how Windows and OS X actually got to be so less secure and stable. That many more layers of software between you telling the computer to do something and your computer doingit meaning that many more layers lost in translation until the system is a bloated, staggering mess that can’t reliably do anything but the most basic tasks. Ubuntu is headed in that direction. That is how Ubuntu got so bad during the 8 series.

Yet Ubuntu would have its users avoid the CLI at all costs. This is why users of more advanced Linux distributions, even other desktop oriented ones like Fedora beat Ubuntu in all categories: Speed, size, stability. Why? Because they expect the user tp actually take the reins a lot more.

Tat is the difference between using your operating system and using you computer: How much control you surrender to your operating system.

If you’ve got an Nvidia card, check the Nvidia site for instructions; you can download and install the driver from the command line. After installing it, I’d suggest installing “nvidia-settings” afterwards as well so set resolutions and positions of multiple monitors if you have them.

If ATI, similarly you can go to their site for instructions. You’ll probably also want their Catalyst Control Center (I can’t remember if it’s installed alongside the driver or not).

Arch is like seventies Prog Rock: “Cools” prentended to like but every one else preferred ABBA – look how that turned out.

But however Arch is great when you haven’t got a girlfriend to waste your time with.

You need to try and express your opinion without insulting people.

Better to have bad habits for using Linux than excuses for avoiding it. And, even to this day, I hear people say “it’s too difficult” or “too steep a learning curve” every time I mention it… at least, those who had tried it several years ago and decided they didn’t like it. The ones who hadn’t tried it took the word of those who had. The damn thing is a meme that’s hard to overcome without something simple and easy-to-understand to show for it.

Shamil Said:
“Why use ubuntu tweak? You have everything all in one place to tweak system settings and blablabla right inside of the system menu at the top of the screen.”

Some people don’t like to use menus, and will appreciate having a “control panel”-esque utility to use instead. Why have steak when you can have potatoes? Then again, what’s wrong with both?

Arch vs Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an immensely popular Debian-based distro commercially sponsored by Canonical Ltd., while Arch is an indepedently developed system built from scratch. If you like to compile your own kernels, try out bleeding-edge CVS-only projects, or build a program from source every once in a while, Arch is better suited. If you want to get up and running quickly and not fiddle around with the guts of the system, Ubuntu is better suited. Arch is presented as a much more minimalist design from the installation onward, relying on the user to customize it to their own specific needs. In general, developers and tinkerers will probably like Arch better than Ubuntu, though many Arch users claim to have started on Ubuntu and eventually migrated to Arch. Ubuntu moves between discrete releases every 6 months, whereas Arch is a rolling release. Arch offers a ports-like package build system, ABS, while Ubuntu does not.

you can both probably agree that:

Linux > Windows

and even agree that:

Ubuntu > Windows

So then you can both agree that Ubuntu obviously bridging the gap between Windows and more complicated and modifiable Linux distros. Ubuntu does one thing well, it leads people away from Windows. Most people just want a functional OS, and Ubuntu does that for them. But those interested in delving deeper into Linux can and probably will switch to other distros such as Arch, while those that are comfortable with Ubuntu and Linux Mint and the like can just enoy their non-windows computer.