On bleeding edge hardware: possibly. On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box, usually is rock solid. It's a bit less flashy and in your face though, but I personally prefer that.

> On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box

YMMV. Just yesterday, I discovered that the Debian installer doesn't include support for UFS drives, which have been available in laptops for 3+ years now.

(Explaining to my wife why I was returning the laptop I'd just bought wouldn't have been a great endorsement for "Linux runs out of the box".)

Coincidental bug report from mail list last week: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]...

Interesting, UFS probably means something different to me than it means to you, for me it spells Unix File System, the bug report lists it as some hardware variation that I'd never even heard of today.

Did you see the follow up comments by the way? Compared to trying to get support from a commercial vendor the FOSS world never ceases to amaze me with the degree of effort people are willing to make to get other people on the way again.

So, let's strike 'a couple of years old' and add 'anything mainstream that is a couple of years old'. We're going to end up with a very long definition if we have to add all of the possible exceptions but I suspect there are more devices capable of running Linux by now than there are of running Windows!

Well UFS isn't entirely esoteric, it's the successor to eMMC and the storage medium on most Android phones. (iPhones use NVMe) I think it's mostly that the UFS/Debian intersection is a bit of an edge case where users aren't typically trying to install Debian on low-end laptops, but it threw me for a bit of a loop when I ran the installer and it showed no available drives to install to. (The Ubuntu installer, for instance, does seem to include UFS support.)

And yes, the support was good! I expect the installer will be fixed within a few months, or whenever the next Debian release happens, given how easy the fix looks to be.

> To fix them, you need to run some arcane commands

At least you can fix them.

Also, sorry can't help the cheap shot: how is typing "arcane commands" any different than clicking on "gnostic glyphs"? Anything can sound complex if you want it to :)

I'm not disputing your experiences but it's so surprising to me. I exclusively use Linux on the desktop on numerous devices, some of which seem like prime candidates for the types of issues you mention, but I've not had any major problems in literal years, especially since switching to the zen kernel.

It's always a shame when people don't like the things you do I guess.

Well, a major difference is that you can discover a GUI and find solutions organically, while the shell is pretty useless without prior knowledge. Even as an experienced user, you need to know to put research into those issues.

I usually struggle with GUIs and I find the concept of discoverability awful. Having to randomly click through tons of menus until you discover the right place is frustrating. I use MS Word maybe twice a month, and every time I go through that ritual of clicking through several tabs just to be able to discover how to save a file. If I used it more often I certainly would remember, but then it's no longer about discovering.

Oh and if you're lucky you have the option to hover for a second to find what the icons mean through a tooltip. Having to do that with every icon until you find the right one is not pleasant.

I just find typing "help" or "man" a lot more intuitive than the random clicking on icons.

I'm sure that I'm a rare specimen and most people would prefer clicking to reading, but personally I find discoverability a bad user experience.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of discoverability. Having the capability of discovering how to do thing X without referring to documentation is fine. The problem is when users are forced to rely on it because the documentation is trash or nonexistent. That does seem to be a trend and I share your frustration with it, but discoverability and good documentation can (and should) coexist.

Yes, you are right that discoverability isn't detrimental unless it becomes an expectation that this is how one must engage with software. I assume that it is also the preferred way to engage with software for some people .

Good user interface/software design is good regardless of whether it is graphical or not though.

Having a row of icons with vague meanings, or endlessly nested/badly categories menus isn't intuitive or easy.

Conversely, there are a plethora of terminal-based programs with absolutely excellent UX.

Anyone can edit a well-documented template/example config file, and a good CLI program is almost like an interactive conversation, which again is an extremely intuitive experience. It's not the fault of whether the interface is graphical or not in most cases, it's just mediocre/bad software.