Are Terminal Multiplexers a Fad?
Are Terminal Multiplexers a Fad?
Despite their questionable utility, terminal multiplexers have skyrocketed to fame in the tech world over the last decade.
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You're conflating the OS with desktop managers. And I disagree, terminals are an extremely useful tool - on any OS you'll eventually get into situations that you can only solve using a terminal (even on windows) because that's how these systems work internally (which is a good thing, because it's easy to automate).
Linux has gotten to that point, in OpenSuse you can do almost everything with a gui (you can't do everything without a console in Windows and Mac either).
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I had to drop down to the terminal just to get my Xbox controllers to work properly
So you're trying to connect a device to your PC which is literally made by Linux' biggest opponent in the OS market who does not provide drivers for other platforms so that the driver has to be reverse engineered and then complain that this is a bit hacky?
I also had to drop to the terminal to see what video card driver I had installed and to install the actual one I wanted.
Package management (including gfx drivers) can be done in YaST with GUI.
Device Manager can tell you everything about any device you have connected and allow you to update, uninstall, and rollback device drivers. I know no GUI on Linux has that.
Luckily, linux drivers are provided as kernel modules and there should be no need to update, uninstall or rollback device drivers besides when the manufacturers don't comply to open standards.
Despite all that, terminal is incredibly useful and can get tasks done orders of magnitude faster than the best GUI ever could.
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Especially when PlayStation controllers work just fine on Windows.
Ps-controllers also work great on Linux! Have to running in Batocera, absolutely no problem plug&play (well, connect and play).
Xbox controllers are the most common controller used.
Are they? I doubt that. I don't know how good or bad they work on Linux, but PS, Steam-Controller, noname-Controllers from AliExpress, Logitech... all working without cli. So maybe Microsoft is the problem here?
But tell me, how do you know what driver is currently being used? (or even what one to install, which Windows will tell you, some distros will tell you what graphics card drivers to install but nothing else.)
Windows will tell you? If you have a dedicated gpu and want to actually use it you have to go to the website of the chipset vendor, search for the driver, look for the doenload, download it, open the downloaded file, allow changes to the system, click next an obscene amount of times while unchecking all the bloat that is bundled with the driver, wait, click again, and then you're good to go. Maybe you are asked to log into your geforce experience account, and then you're good to go. Having some program always running in the background, collecting data, hugging ressources. On Linux you have the choice to install the proprietary or the open source driver. And it just works (at least for AMD since 2019 for me)
Clearly, drivers need to be updated or even rolled back. There have been updates to the open-source drivers.
In Linux most drivers are kernel modules and you generally don't interact with them at all. Everything just works. Exceptions are gfx cards and shitty wireless chipsets. Maybe FFB driving wheels. Besides that, every driver update is tested and happens automatically when your package manager installs updates (which can be done via GUI).
No driver is perfect so they do break things and need to get reverted.
That is just objectively wrong. Simple drivers for simple devices can be implemented perfectly and so can more complicated ones, which they sometimes even are. Tell me which driver you had to "revert". Was it for a NVIDIA GPU?
I just want to have my computer work so I can get back to writing code, playing games, and watching shows. Anything that gets in the way is not really worth the time.
Same here, so i prefer one line in the terminal over opening a window, navigating with the mouse, searching in lists, clicking all these buttons, navigsting through a file picker... not worth my time (see, it is about speed!)
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Instead of doubting, just look it up: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/valve-pc-controller-usage-statistics,37853.html
Many noname controller disguise themselves as x360 and the main way to get any controller working when a x360 is required is x360ce which disguises any controller as x360. You can even use your keyboard as x360. Plus this is 5 years old plus this is steam only.
Are any of those attempting wireless connections via a 2.4 GHz dongle? Really that's the only reason you need a driver in the first place. All controllers are otherwise compatible with xinput.
The steam controller has it's own dongle, with a driver in the kernel, which modern xbox controller could have.
Nah, mate, you don't got to do anything but hit the windows update button. Proprietary versions ship with Windows which will automatically update with Windows. Windows will also tell you directly in device manager, as I've said.
Haven't used windows 11 yet but in 10 i had to manually install gfx drivers
Okay, now I am talking to a wall. Like seriously, you've never had a driver you needed to specifically update? I am surprised. I've had to revert AMD and Nvidia drivers. I also just recently had to uninstall xow and install xone.
As I repeatedly said, most drivers are already in the kernel. I have a non-class compliant, 15 yo usb audio interface which is EOL according to the manufacturer and for which the latest 64-bit driver vor windows is for windows 7. It has a driver in the linux kernel and it works. Mainboard soundchip? Driver in the kernel! Network adapter? Driver in the kernel! Firewire pci card? Driver in the kernel! Good wifi/bt chipset? Driver in the kernel! 99% of your hardware require no install of a driver. NVIDIAs driver used to be spotty, but I heard it is better now. With AMD i personally never had any problem. Only drivers I had to manually install in like ever have been for shitty realtek wifi chips and a ffb-wheel (which would have worked but without ffb).
I don’t care, my opinion differs. Linux is supposed to be the OS of choice and customization.
And you're free to go the slow and time consuming way with gui. Just accept that because of choice and customisation not every fringe detail about your pc will be avaible in a gui unless you choose your custom solution for displaying them.
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Microsoft PowerToys has a pseudo-tiling wm for Windows. There are loads of new options on Linux so while few people from the total population are using them, I think they're growing.
I'm sure you could get by without a terminal on modern desktop oriented distros. Windows has it's own weirdness, like having to manually edit the registry. Just because there's a GUI for that doesn't make it a better user experience. A ton of issues are basically unfixable by users on Windows and Mac. I'm not decompiling their kernel to figure out why sleep is so flakey. Linux is much more reliable.