I have used Arch for >13 years (btw) and use the terminal every single session. I also work with Linux servers daily, so I tried the other families with DEs (Debian/Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS/AlmaLinux/Fedora).
I’m comfortable (and prefer) doing everything with CLI tools. For me, it’s a bit difficult to convert my Windows friends, as they all see me as some kind of hackerman.
What’s the landscape like nowadays, in terms of terminal requirements?
Bonus question: Which distribution is the most user-friendly while still updated packages? Does anything provide a similar experience to Arch’s amazing AUR?


Windows refugee here. I installed Debian 13 with KDE Plasma on my main machine four months ago and I am still ironing out issues. Eg CUPS was asking me to login all the time and didn’t accept my credentials. After some days researching I discovered I had to log in as root. Then, I discovered I didn’t have root credentials for some reason. I had to create them and then add my local user to a group! Just to be able to use my home printer.
Or suddenly my clock was 62 minutes off. I discovered the NTP service was never set up properly and I had to install chrony.
I don’t see how I could have avoided using the terminal. These are only a couple of examples. No deal-breakers and on this occasion I had the time and determination to resolve them. I could have easily given up.
Just a heads up, you should just need the group set up
That is crazy that you weren’t added to it by default, though.
I was also surprised - you used to be able to modify a user’s group membership through the System Settings GUI. That’s a huge missing piece that you can’t do that anymore