[pherocity_]

I don't think it ever will be. I first installed redhat linux back in 95, and it was a multi weekend project, and I had to solder something. Since then, the installation has gone from insane to Windows XP easy, but it seems stuck there. And even for a media server, I have to dip into the shell to get it working. If you still have to use the shell 20 years later for a non edge case, it isn't going to get better, there is something about the architecture that is preventing it.

And I don't want an office suite, or movie recorder, or any of that crap. But I want the Gnome Terminal, or other pretty terminal where I have font smoothing or whatever that is called. I know I can do this with Arch, but I'm not a systems guy, I'm a developer, and I don't want to have to learn about all the systems crap. I just want a shell that is pleasant to look at, my fatigue is so much less when looking at pleasant non offensive colours.

[bitL]

Unfortunately, the only way to get fairly nice looking fonts on Linux is to use a 4k display :-( Even with font hinting, the quality you are used to from OS X or even Windows isn't there, and most people that develop Linux don't seem to have developed sensitivity for font quality, so you should not expect any improvements. Any time I look at my Debian server, I have that strange unpleasant feeling of fonts being somehow off. Ubuntu/Mint are better, yet still nowhere near the clarity of OS X.

[nitrogen]

You can get font smoothing from xterm by using the -fa option. Use xfontsel to build the parameter string. There are probably "xresource" (iirc) settings to change its color palette, or you can use a 256color scheme for your editor. It's not exactly easy, but it is very fast and lightweight.

[walterbell]

Linux has at least one nice GPL console font, courtesy of Sun Microsystems, https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf