Hello good people of Gnome.

Please, If this missive is in the ‘Wrong’ category - please move it to where it should reside.

I’ll try and make this as short as is practical.

I have arrived here amongst you good people out of sheer desperation!

I have been using Ubuntu 18.04 (with the Gnome Desktop) for some years. First on dual boot machines and now completely exclusive. Yes! No more Microsoft!! Hooray!!

At first everything was fine - until I began to gradually shed my Microsoft dependence. Suddenly I needed a DVD burning application. I found nothing in the Snap Store. Somebody pointed me to the “AlternativeTo” website where I found some promising applications. And this is where everything started to fall apart.

There were mentions of “Shell”, “Terminal”, “Compiling”, “Tarballs”, etc etc. I am NOT an IT specialist. I don’t write code - (I used to many years ago write code in Visual Basic 4) but I Know NOTHING about coding for Ubuntu.

I use computers for writing text, researching History, looking at YouTube etc etc. Tinkering with the insides of a computer chip is certainly NOT one of my hobbies.

This leads to my question to you all - WHY, WHY, WHY am I expected to have the knowledge of an IT specialist in order to install a simple application on Ubuntu? When I used Vis Basic 4 all those years ago the .exe file was distributed with a dozen or more Dynamic Link Libraries - BUT they were all automatically enclosed in a simple application that installed everything with one click and with no outside help.

The SnapStore clearly has a similar application because one simply presses “Install” and Voila! done!

I try to encourage colleagues and friends to try Ubuntu but the answer is ALWAYS the same. “You need to be a Computer Geek to use Ubuntu. It’s too complicated.” Sadly, they are correct.

Linux will NEVER gain much traction outside the “Computer Enthusiast Community” until it becomes far more easy to use. It’s no good having ‘beautiful Desktops’ if one needs a degree in computers to install an application.

Somebody told me I should learn to use Terminal. WHY?? If I buy a new car, I do NOT expect to find all the parts in a container and then have to assemble it myself - without instructions too.

If the SnapStore can arrange for software to be painlessly installed on my computers surely other software authors can do the same.

So, Dear Gnome People, please don’t read this as a ‘Rant’ it’s not intended to be. I want to be able to continue using Ubuntu (with the Gnome Desktop, I believe) but I’m beginning to question my reasons for continuing.

Is Linux Ubuntu such a complicated, disconnected patchwork of odds and ends that it cannot be used like Microsoft or Apple machines?

Thank you for reading this far.

My kind regards to you all.

Dragonfly.