There's More Distros in the Sea...

[mcobit]

You really don't need the commandline under linux. But you will not use anything else after a while. It is just too quick to do everything on the shell.


Try using windows from a remoteshell in a comfortable way... Not possible at all.


I tried to setup a headless windows server some years ago. Never again! RTP is fine and dandy but if you want to use a system efficiently you need a good cli and bash, csh etc. Not that windows shell bullshit where you revert to using the gui all the time.


That's just my opinion btw.

 

[Yoyobuae]

The main benefit of the command line is that it is 100% text.

You can pretty much google whatever text error any command outputs and you'll immediately get tons of info about it. Or if the isn't a specific error displayed for your issue you can at least enable verbose output to look for clues about the issue.

But it's not as easy to explain, let alone search, for issues that happen with GUI applications. Sometimes the app will complain and show a text description of the error which can be google'd, but more often than not the apps will just leave you clueless as to what goes wrong.

Since command line input is 100% text, you are more likely to find guides showing exactly what commands to execute, compared to a tutorial for a GUI app which will need to either include many screenshots or use some kind of text notation to describe which GUI menu/button/etc to activate.

Finally, since it is 100% text it is very easy to get remote command line access to whatever system, text is much easier/faster to transmit than the graphics of a GUI (remote graphical login is possible, just not very efficient due to lag).

 

[_wb_]

I like something like mc (midnight commander), which combines the benefits of command line with those of a file manager. It's text-only so you can still use it over ssh or whatever. But you get a nice full-screen two-panel file manager with built-in viewer/editor etc. This is to me more practical than typing lots of cd, ls, mv, cp etc commands. Especially the vfs feature for going into tarballs or remote filesystems (e.g. ftp) is very practical.

 

[sebt3]

Not that windows shell bullshit where you revert to using the gui all the time.

I can see you never used powershell

 

[mcobit]

No. But is it more powerful than bash?


Edit: I read .net ... baaah

 

[DatNOBoi]

Basically, the command line reduces all of those steps to a single interface, which is nice if someone's willing to learn (which I am). Just don't ask most end-users to switch to Linux just to force them to learn how to use the command line.

Well for me I grew up with computers before Windows was a thing, It wasn't until the mid 90's when I started using it and I didn't like it since it ate up valuable hard-drive space that could be used for games. In the late 90's I got a job that required using a lot of Unix based systems and it got me interested in Linux at home.. So for me dealing with the command line is something I was familiar with most of my life.. I can see how some are a bit overwhelmed by it.

Does Linux Mint try to circumvent this?

Not that I know of, I mean most distributions now are fairly easy to new users.

Ah, pardon the generalization then. I probably should've said "end-users today" instead of using all-encompassing language.  Personally, I've only used computers when Windows was a thing, and that was only for school. Nowadays, I don't even watch TV anymore.

 

[DatNOBoi]

You really don't need the commandline under linux. But you will not use anything else after a while. It is just too quick to do everything on the shell.

Hmm. I'll put that to the test while I'm learning about the Linux command line.

Also, people seem reluctant to put their stuff in the Software Center, so I'm usually forced to go through the command line anyway. No complaints about that anymore though; I'm gonna learn.

The main benefit of the command line is that it is 100% text.

You can pretty much google whatever text error any command outputs and you'll immediately get tons of info about it. Or if the isn't a specific error displayed for your issue you can at least enable verbose output to look for clues about the issue.

But it's not as easy to explain, let alone search, for issues that happen with GUI applications. Sometimes the app will complain and show a text description of the error which can be google'd, but more often than not the apps will just leave you clueless as to what goes wrong.

Since command line input is 100% text, you are more likely to find guides showing exactly what commands to execute, compared to a tutorial for a GUI app which will need to either include many screenshots or use some kind of text notation to describe which GUI menu/button/etc to activate.

Finally, since it is 100% text it is very easy to get remote command line access to whatever system, text is much easier/faster to transmit than the graphics of a GUI (remote graphical login is possible, just not very efficient due to lag).

Wow! Thank you for that nice explanation of the advantages. This basically gave me everything I was missing on why to use the command line outside of speed and making myself feel smarter.

I like something like mc (midnight commander), which combines the benefits of command line with those of a file manager. It's text-only so you can still use it over ssh or whatever. But you get a nice full-screen two-panel file manager with built-in viewer/editor etc. This is to me more practical than typing lots of cd, ls, mv, cp etc commands. Especially the vfs feature for going into tarballs or remote filesystems (e.g. ftp) is very practical.

I didn't even know that was a thing. I don't like doing the "cd" thing since I'm probably never gonna memorize where every single directory is (plus, I'd have to go through the GUI anyway just to get the directory path anyway).

Sounds very efficient, but still. I'll stick to slowly phazing out the GUI with the command line. Baby steps and all that jazz.

 

[rygD]

I like something like mc (midnight commander), which combines the benefits of command line with those of a file manager.

 Agreed.  I started out using Norton Commander and was thrilled when I found people were trying to keep that type of tool alive for many modern operating systems.

I don't like doing the "cd" thing since I'm probably never gonna memorize where every single directory is (plus, I'd have to go through the GUI anyway just to get the directory path anyway).

In most unix like OSs i think things are generally in the same place.  In windows it is generally the same at least within the version.  ls/dir will give you the contents of a directory in each of those, respectively.

 

[ekianjo]

Just don't ask most end-users to switch to Linux just to force them to learn how to use the command line.

Actually when you start using the command line you'll find it's way more practical than the GUI for many operations, and you'll also learn how to program scripts to make your life easier. It's a massive win for the end user. GUI is nice when you are just starting, but moving on to learning how to use computers should go through the command line. Or even better, start with the command line as a kid (some people did - back in the 8bits days my ORIC and C64 only had the command line and nothing else).