[mythtv-users] OT: A major difference between Widows and Linux

Damian myth at surr.co.uk
Thu May 12 08:51:47 UTC 2016


Hi All,

If this isn't appropriate, then feel free to ignore the question and let 
the thread die. I'm only putting it here because you guys are the 
smartest computer users I know, so I'm interested in your opinion.

A fundamental difference between Windows and Linux, it seems to me, is ...
In Linux, if pretty much anything goes wrong, the user needs to enter 
some commands into the terminal in order to get to the bottom of the 
problem.
In Windows, no matter what goes wrong, there is almost never a 'need' to 
go to the command line.

If your job is administering networks with Windows or something, then 
you probably completely disagree with the above observation. My starting 
point is my own experience. My 'geek level' is significantly lower that 
some of the geniuses in this group. However, I was always the guy who 
friends and family called on to fix their machines if things whet wrong. 
So, I've seen a lot of Windows problems, and I never had to use the 
command line to fix them!

Linux has changed MASSIVELY over the last 15 years. It's users no longer 
need to touch the terminal whichever things are working, and installing 
an OS is a breeze (oh how I remember the pain it used to be!). However, 
as soon as something goes wrong (and things always go wrong), the answer 
always starts with the terminal.

This seems to be a huge barrier to casual users to me. And although the 
GUI's are great now, we still need the terminal for problem solving.

Windows never needed the terminal for problem solving! I seem to 
remember that we had to 'load' Windows 3.1 from DOS, but ever since 
Windows 95, the problems (of which there have been many!!) have always 
had a solution that was still within a GUI.

Is this because they are built significantly differently?
Is it because us Linux geeks like being the gatekeepers to the causal 
users GUI, but don't want to let them have 'actual control'?

I'm not looking for a flame war or anything. I just find this a 
genuinely interesting question.

Cheers,
Damian


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