Windows has an entirely different set of objectives.

I never thought of it this way. My first reaction was “What do you mean ‘different objectives’, they’re both operating systems!” But Windows is an operating system with the objective of making profit for Microsoft. Linux is an operating system with the goal of… being an operating system.

It really puts it in perspective. Windows (and Mac) can and will only use useful to the consumer up to a point.

I’m surprised to hear you don’t like Fedora. I recently tried Kinoite and I wish I’d discovered it sooner. I’ve never had a Linux distro that felt so detail-oriented and complete. I’d be curious to hear your reasoning!

Ignore everyone here saying fix Ubuntu and try Fedora Kinoite (or Silverblue). Bazzite is probably great too if you are gaming but I haven’t tried it.

I finally tried Fedora Kinoite after years of Ubuntu (and related distros) and I genuinely wish I had tried it sooner. Everything just works. I cannot reccomend it enough. It’s what I always wanted Linux to be.

I’ve actually tried Zorin and was really impressed! My favorite use of GNOME I’ve seen for sure. Though it’s technically Ubuntu based (which is Debian based).

Agreed on all counts! I really can’t express enough how impressed I am.

requires a fair bit of post-installation configuration

This is crazy to me because of all the distros I’ve tested over the years Fedora Kinote is by FAR the one I’ve had to do the least amount of tweaking with. It’s almost boring how “just works” it is. It’s honestly changed my perspective of what a distro can be.

It works with Fedora, Windows and Macintosh. It worked with Ubuntu until a month ago. It doesn’t work with a fresh install of Ubuntu with default settings.

There, now you have all the same information I have.

It worked perfectly with Ubuntu until recently. It worked perfectly with Windows and Macintosh. It worked perfectly with Fedora.

It didn’t work with a fresh install of Ubuntu and several other distros in the same family.

Now I know what you’re about to say- you’re about to say it could have worked if I had only X Y or Z. But that’s not my point.

My point is that newbies don’t want to troubleshoot everything.

I have not but it was actually on my list of distros to try if Fedora didn’t work out. I should give it a look.

idk I have only needed the terminal once, with Ubuntu/Gnome it was a daily occurrence.

It’s not a RAM problem lmao it rarely crashed on Windows and it’s not crashed with Fedora either.

Any modern distro.

I don’t suppose you could give the name of a distro that achieves full functionality purely in the GUI?

I’m using GNOME thanks that link looks helpful

A bash script is like a shell script in Windows. It is a text file that runs multiple commands in order. As if you opened the terminal and typed them in yourself.

Udev rules I need to learn about but based on context I have to assume it’s a tool for running scripts when specific events happen (like a monitor being plugged in)

Thanks. I know my way around bash scripts but I guess it’s time to learn Udev rules. Are you aware of any examples I can find online?

I see. For me, the step of memorization is time-consuming, especially for a program I only need on rare occasions and for simple tasks.

Right, and they only demonstrated limited functionality.

There are apps that can do it, but require the terminal to install.

Also in every distro I’ve tried, config files will open read-only, not with the authentication pop-up.

In your opinion what makes a terminal program “more useful” than a GUI program with the exact same functionality? Genuinely curious because it’s a perspective I cannot wrap my brain around lol

In other words, I can successfully install things like a windows user, I just have to go the extra step to open the file’s properties and make it executable with the GUI first.

Some programs can be installed this way, but it’s extremely far from universal.

Config files can be edited in the GUI text editor

Not without opening them as root, which in every distro I know of, requires the terminal.

To test my claim and prove your third point, this link is the repository for a samba GUI

The install directions for that program involve the terminal.