this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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Hi, everybody Recently, a guy noticed that I was using it and asked why? For me it because in Linux many things are done through the terminal because Linux has many different desktop environments

He also compared terminal commands with cheat codes in GTA and other games, he understands what benefits you take from them, but not from terminal commands

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[–] antihumanitarian 2 points 6 months ago

I think about it like a tree structure for both. With a gui you have to move your mouse around to various places, with a cli each character branches off into another tree. Mathematically you can handle more options faster with a CLI.

[–] squid_slime 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Can get much more done rather than navigating desktop and gui's.. Also I'm a sucker for tui's,

Ranger,

Rtorrent-ps,

Nvtop,

Gotop,

Gomuks,

Even greetd tui implementation,

And much more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I usually use that to install updates.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

terminal is just faster sometimes

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

It just works

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I use the terminal in a variety of circumstances (like working on Node.js and other programming projects) where there is either no good GUI alternative or using a CLI is actually faster. I've been using computers since 1989 and my first operating system was MS-DOS, so the thought of using a CLI when necessary doesn't bother me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Everyone’s different idk. I myself love command line. I have enjoyed Linux for a long time but it didn’t really become my daily driver until recently. I find it very rare that I use the GUI for more than gaming and watching stuff. Everything else is command line. I’ve had friends refuse to try Linux due to the “requirement” of needing to do stuff in command line. When I showed them some newer distros that appeal to users who don’t really feel comfortable with command lines.

[–] danielfgom 2 points 6 months ago

To be honest I hardly use it. I'm on Linux Mint Debian Edition and the built in updater does a great job. So I find myself never using the terminal

[–] GustavoM 2 points 6 months ago

Why not? It's simple, lightweight, has a lot of interesting commands that fills its respective niche really well (btop, for instance) and (the best of all) it doesn't explode my PC everytime I run such commands.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I can use Fish’s history to jog my brain on actions I don’t quite remember. Remembering a sequence of screen menus to click thru is often much more tedious & error-prone. And when you have a commonly repeated process, it’s trivial to script because shell scripts are, well, scripts for that terminal shell.

Also the terminals applications are hella portable. I can use ssh/mosh over the network & have a similar or exact environment as my main PC on a remote box. vi was always a good enough editor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

One could ask in return "why do you use a mouse". The answer is probably "I've always done it this way" and not "after trying out different methods it's the one that i prefer".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Even back in the day when I still used Windows (and GUI almost exclusively) I browsed my filesystems like I'd use a terminal with tab-completion. I'd press the first few letters of the file/directory I was looking for and press enter, rinse and repeat. I knew my file organization by heart anyway. It's only natural for me to drop the GUIs for such use cases.

[–] ook_the_librarian 2 points 6 months ago

Nice choice. Try to stick to the standard repository, kinda like the Play store on android.

I believe Mint tries to have minimal dependence on the command line. But usually it's easier to help others solve problems with the command line since that is easier to write out than how to click through menus. So don't let it scare you too much.

The internet is a friendlier place now, at least in the linux help-o-sphere. People don't let others post destructive "lessons" for people to learn anymore.

That was comment I wrote in a thread about distro recommendations. I think it provides a context in which CL has a clear advantage over GUI.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Because it's the only way for me to change the color of my rgb keyboard /jk but it's true tho

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Lynx is faster 😎

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

For me, two main aspects: I do not have to move my hands from the keyboard and I can pipe things from one tool into others, significantly speeding up many tasks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Because app manager doesn't work well. And there are the feedback on terminal that tell you about missing dependencies or broken packages...The fact you get those verbose log help for doing web research and solve lot problems. On GUI installing app isn't well done : it's slow, they don't tell you what they are doing nor why it fail.

The only limitation of terminal is when you want to work with file system. I need to see the tree and typing ls -a everytime isn't efficient. Example, i'm doing a git clone on a server throught ssh. But i have no way to know its structure and check if i downloaded it in the correct directory. I need a visual that tell me this folder is here, has those writing permission, is a tar archive... So i use both : filezilla and terminal, gui and cli. In fact, they are both very useful, so there no point comparing gui and cli, they both serve well their purpose.

I'm using CLI and GUI. For example, if i want to chose the correct keyboard and check its mapping : gui. If i want to add sources and its gpg key : app manager gui. There is no way i would enjoy typing this huge command line with flags from my mind, and i do lot mistype. Or installing the stack lamp ? on windows it was amazing and faster than linux. next, next, done.

Luckly we can copy-pasta those commands.

Edit : updated my text.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

For filesystems I have another gripe: if I move a file to another directory and I want to swap to the directory I just copied the stuff to I have to enter the whole path again...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I don't actually use it that much to input commands, but many scripts I made pop one up to show details of what's happening, e.g. how opening the VPN connection is going, what crypto module it's currently loading or how many more iterations a macro will do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

For simple tasks you don't need CLI. Most GUIs implement basic workflows and do a reasonable job at it (obviously not counting the ridiculous amount of time Windows needs to "compute space requirements" while deleting an empty directory. Seems it's more important to get that little popup on screen and run the animation a few times than actually doing the job).

It's when you get past the basics that CLI comes into its own. Those grindy things you do in Windows clicking one thing at a time? Glue a couple of commands together in the CLI and it's done in a tiny fraction of the time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago
  1. Update and install apps
  2. Edit my host file
  3. Neofetch
[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Gnome software store is absolute trash that never worked, so i had to use dnf from terminal. That's about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Because there is no native gui. For most things to configure in Linux there is a webui but not a simple Gui built in. Configuration files like squid.conf smb.conf nginx.com... then we have logs but here I think I never checked for a Gui, does it work for remote ssh easily? Can you restart service easy?

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