[dijit]

This _can_ be true, but GNOME (for example) have drastically changed their UI paradigm in that time window.

It's quite nice as a power user, I use terminals and.. overall terminals and tiling window managers barely change.

But the pace of change can be jarring, and sometimes controversial:

GNOME2->3

init->systemd

alsa->pulse->pipewire

ifconfig->ip

NetworkManager->iwctl

A lot of the ergonomics _do_ change with Linux if you're not paying attention.

And this isn't to mention the default desktop manager changing between major versions of popular distros like ubuntu.

[NullPrefix]

>GNOME2->3

I assume MATE is still supported. Yes, it requires user action to change the DE, but end result may be worth it.

>init->systemd

OpenRC supported on Gentoo.

>alsa->pulse->pipewire

Pulseaudio is optional. Pipewire might be worthwhile to hear out.

>ifconfig->ip

ifconfig still works for me.

>NetworkManager->iwctl

No idea, never used any of those.

[asddubs]

to be fair, there's also MATE to get the old gnome experience untainted, so even for gnome users this is possible. I personally prefer cinnamon, set up with the classic windows XP taskbar, plus maybe one at the top too

[coolspot]

iwctl is only for wireless networks, no?

In my understanding, the systemd-networkd is more like a successor of NetworkManager.

[usr1106]

Yes, iwd/iwctl is the (wannabe) successor of wpa_supplicant. But systemd-networkd cannot really do WLAN. It can replace NetworkManager in a data center and an office machine. But not conveniently on a laptop. I guess the same might be true for VPN (the rare cases I need one I do it ad-hoc from command line, so no real experience in that area).