Plus for a long time desktop Windows needed cmd.exe to support login scripts.
Just as people use Linux daily without ever touching the command line. Eg Android, LG smart TVs (webOS), Satellite TV set top boxes (eg Sky Q), home routers, etc.
And if you want to focus on Linux running on laptops, then there are ChromeBooks and the old Asus EeePCs.
The reason desktop Linux isn’t polished is because every time a company invests heavily into desktop Linux, Microsoft undercuts them (like how they sold XP at a loss to thwart Linux in the netbook market). But the fact that Apple could take BSD, Google take Linux, and Nintendo also run BSD on some of their consoles, really speaks volumes about how there’s nothing technically stopping people running a POSIX platform like Linux and still hide the command line from regular users.
Though going back to my “Linux isn’t polished” point, I still think Linux+KDE is a lot more polished than modern Windows. But that’s just my biased opinion.
For my main point, I suppose I should have specified GNU/Systemd/Linux as needing a CLI, not everything with a Linux kernel. POSIX-style kernel + libc is a very good basis for an OS, and such an OS doesn't need a CLI exposed to the user. It's all the Udev/Systemd/SysVInit & similar stuff that's CLI-only, and desktop Linux tends to require interacting with one or more of those on at least an occasional basis.
There are web based GUIs for systemd (and sysv init too).
But the main reason you don’t see GUIs for those services is because Desktop distros tend to abstract away systemd so you don’t even need to manage it, let alone have a GUI to do so.
Like with Windows, the average user wouldn’t be manually managing what services to start and stop.
And that’s the real crux of things. A lot of the stuff that people say you need a CLI for in Linux are operations that the average user wouldn’t know nor want to do on Windows even with a GUI. They just run a browser and if the machine goes slow they ask someone technical (friend or shop) to fix. I know this because I used to be that friend.
So I really don’t think the CLI is what holds back Linux. It’s just the economics was never there while Microsoft dominated the desktop world. And these days most people use phones and tablets as their general purpose device, so in a way Linux did eventually win anyway.
> Just as people use Linux daily without ever touching the command line. Eg Android, LG smart TVs (webOS), Satellite TV set top boxes (eg Sky Q), home routers, etc.
None of those are (used as) general purpose computers though.
Did you read my next paragraph where I acknowledged that point myself and gave some laptop examples too?
Plus I’d argue Android is the average persons general purpose computer. At least in terms of the people I know, they use their phones for 99% of things and actively avoid using a laptop as much as they can.
Plus for a long time desktop Windows needed cmd.exe to support login scripts.
Just as people use Linux daily without ever touching the command line. Eg Android, LG smart TVs (webOS), Satellite TV set top boxes (eg Sky Q), home routers, etc.
And if you want to focus on Linux running on laptops, then there are ChromeBooks and the old Asus EeePCs.
The reason desktop Linux isn’t polished is because every time a company invests heavily into desktop Linux, Microsoft undercuts them (like how they sold XP at a loss to thwart Linux in the netbook market). But the fact that Apple could take BSD, Google take Linux, and Nintendo also run BSD on some of their consoles, really speaks volumes about how there’s nothing technically stopping people running a POSIX platform like Linux and still hide the command line from regular users.
Though going back to my “Linux isn’t polished” point, I still think Linux+KDE is a lot more polished than modern Windows. But that’s just my biased opinion.