The users on Windows range from casual not techies to full on nerds. In between there are people with different interests and different tech experience. The next likely new Linux users will be at the techy end of that range. Bunching them together is really poor usability analysis. Talking about average users is also nonsense. Out of 100 users, there might be only one average user.

I’ve been using Linux full-time at home for 14 years+ without needing to use the command line. Linux is far from perfect, but misinformation should be avoided.

At work I need Eindows for our CAD application. FOSS CAD is OK for some use cases. But falls far short for my car design use cases.

sure. those are reasons it’s missing some stuff. But I was referring to other important things also missing from Windows. Which is what Linux seems to follow. Linux has a great opportunity to break away, and come up with something really good. But sadly, there will be reasons not to, I suspect.

AutoCAD might be widely used at the lower end, where many just create a sketch and extrude it. But that is no good for car or aircraft design, where you need high end smooth shape commands, and high productivity workflows.

Great. But AutoCAD and Solidworks are not high end CAD. Acceptable for some I guess. But we need serious CAD.

We have to use Windows at work for our high end CAD. There’s no FOSS alternative.

I use Linux at home. Which is basically a, less crap, copy of Windows. But is still missing important stuff.

They should get out more.

I knew they should have built a real smoke and engine noise generator into the cyber truck. So that all those who insist on polluting, don’t have to be left out.

Why not both? It’s simple to install both and decide for yourself. I use both for different tasks.

I’m also not a text first person. There are a lot of us about. I have found GUI applications to do most commands I need. Most IT users don’t know them, as they’ve never searched for them. I pin the apps as Favourites in the launcher, to help remember my processes. The apps typically keep the last used values, making them quite productive.

Oh great! The planet has already got a carbon dioxide atmosphere. So we can’t go there and burn stuff to mess it up like web did to the last one.

Get a spare computer. Then you will feel more inclined to mess with it. And your main computer is always ready to look up issues and set up boot USB sticks. You will definitely try out lots more distros without hesitation.

And there are some cool mini PCs to buy quite cheap.

Many churches have a bible that the church want’s you to believe without question. Which is known as faith. It is better to question everything.

Me in shop: I want to buy a robot vacuum cleaner. Do you have one of those sweary ones?

In this case I wouldn’t associate the poor usability with the designers, I think its down to big business not caring. Plus it costs more to make a UI good, and flexible for different user situations. They’ll also hire the cheapest designers. It’s all about saving money and more profit. Their main aim. And in the case of monopolies, people can’t go elsewhere. The problems all come down from the top.

For some, with only a small screen, wasted space means extra navigation to find hidden commands. A usability fail just so the app looks pretty. Also a symptom of “one UI fits all” just to save businesses money.

In KDE Plasma, if you right click on the launch menu button, there is an option Show Alternatives. Here, you can immediately select and use one of the installed alternative start menus. On top of that, you can install further launcher menus, which will then appear in the Show Alternatives list. I installed Simple Menu (from Eike Hein) that has categories, favourites and search. And let’s you move the icons around. But its that easy to try out different launchers. I hope you find a good one.

Yes. To a typist, it’s all about the typing. The design, engineering and drawings don’t seem to be important it seems.

It’s a centralised network. They need to make maximum profit and don’t need to care about users, because they won’t leave whatever nasty thing happens. Being on there encourages friends and family to stay and suffer too. And keeps people off of decentralized networks.

I’m surprised people stay on Facebook, then grizzle about how bad they’ve helped it become.

Not being fast at typing does not mean you are not tech savvy. There is more to tech than typing. Like an architect doesn’t need to be good at brick-laying to be a good architect.

Copy pasting strange commands people will not memorise does not solve it! To keep non IT people on Linux, they need to find out how their desktop GUI works, so they are in control and happy to stay. The aim is not to use the minimum possible time writing the tips. Thrusting an unfamiliar environment on people is sure to scare them away, and is bad usability.