If I remember correctly (provided it is the same paper we are talking about) there was another condition: that a regime change happens within 2 years of 3.5% population protest, which many news articles also fail to mention.

I would say that for 95% of usual tasks I don’t use terminal on Linux Mint Debian Faye 6 (LMDE), most of the software can be installed by double clicking a .deb file you download from the web. Compared to 10 years ago when I tried Linux for the first time (and reverted to Win back then) nowadys it is insanely more convenient to use.