Is The Terminal Worth Learning? GUI vs Terminal on Linux

The age-old argument, GUI vs TUI? GUI versus Terminal. Which is better, which should you use?
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#ramble #vs #thelinuxcast

[tmendoza]

The Terminal = power, The terminal was the reason I moved to linux so many years ago! The Terminal is so freaking fantastic!

[Flackon]

I think most people's first experience with the command line was on Windows, so they are understandably wary and think the terminal sucks. But a Unix-like terminal is completely different than the windows cmd prompt. It's not that hard to learn, and it's a fantastic power tool

[rmcellig]

I come from a Mac GUI background. When I used Linux, I HATED, I mean HATED the terminal!!!! I felt it was antiquated and hard to figure out. I persisted until one day mostly e everything clicked in a good way and I haven't looked back. I use audacity because I don't think there is a cli way of doing what the GUI can do. This is an example. But file manipulations in the terminal is more efficient and fun in the terminal.

I love this video because you raise some excellent points!! Well done! 😀

[The_Wandering_Nerd]

It all depends on what you're doing. You wouldn't want to retouch photos in the terminal, or rename a thousand files based on a regex search string in nautilus.

[CyperN]

Matt, knowledge is the gateway to enlightenment. That being said that's how I live. It's the terminal for me went possible. I'm a trained, and natural, artist but very few GUIs meet my idea of a clean efficient interface to get things done. For me, that's what's all about. Getting it done instead of thinking about how you are going to do it.

[sandeepvk]

With great power comes great responsibility. Linux is Power

[brianjones]

You didn't mention that a lot depends a lot depends on the quality of the GUI application. Consider the Raspberry Pi, which I would suggest is many people's introduction to Linux. If you want to install say 10 applications on the Pi, learning how to use "sudo apt install" on the terminal will take less time, and will lead to greater reward, than trying to navigate the "Add/remove software" GUI route.

[OcteractSG]

For the most part, I see the terminal as a maintenance and setup tool. I’ll mainly use it when I want to work on something new, but I I’ll also use it to fix stuff if necessary. Also, I will throw out there that I occasionally use cmd on Windows to do stuff, enough that I even gave it the Ctrl+Alt+T hotkey.

[AnalyticMinded]

There are pros and cons for each: for example, I always go back to a gui file manager when I'm working with office documents because it's easy to open them that way, and as soon as I open a folder, I immediately see whether a document is there or not, so I don't have to type "ls" every time and look for it. On the other hand, if I'm working with text files (let's say I'm ricing or learning Linux), then the terminal is a lot easier. To move core system files, you only need to type sudo mv, whereas in a gui you have to right click and choose to open as Administrator. Also, I can open text files without leaving the terminal via vim; no need to open several gui windows and clog my workspace. This is one reason why I never could switch to something like Ranger, because for office documents it's easier to spot and click on icons in a gui, whereas for text files the command line is easier.

[paprika]

Didn't even watch the video yet and I can promise you the terminal is the way to go.

[phonewithoutquestion]

If the GUI is overdone, then the Terminal will likely have a better way of doing it. I am open to using graphical applications that focus on "less is more", such as Celluloid, GPicView, and Nitrogen. PCManFM is one of the only two graphical file managers that doesn't have a bloaty UI with the other being Thunar. I think the terminal is best suited for mixers and such, how much GTK or QT or Motif does a volume adjustment and equalizer need for consumption?

[shakkirptb]

Using terminal beautifier is a cry for GUI :D

[leemanwrong]

For the average computer user i don't think its worth learning you can get by with the gui just fine. For enthusiasts its definitely worth it, for years i just used linux and the gui only but recently i challenged myself and switched to endeavour to learn the terminal and its been really fun and rewarding.

[ruenoak]

I agree it depends on the user. if you are a generic computer user who just happens to use Linux you shouldn't really have to use the terminal to get your work done. example my Dad has been using Kubuntu for years and he wouldn't know what a terminal was. But if you are an enthusiast and a bit nerdy then the terminal is fantastic and can open a whole new world of computing.

[locatemarbles]

Using free-open source programs makes you OS-agnostic. Using the terminal makes you distro-/hardware-agnostic. Could be sitting in front of a bleeding edge machine or a 20 year old potato, in front of Ubuntu or Gentoo. Its all the same. Where there is a terminal there is a way.

[shakkirptb]

for those 10 days a year, I'll google the commands when there is no other way, for rest of the year, GUI get things done much cleaner

[BrucesWorldofStuff]

There was no GUI or Windows when I started and it was all in the terminal... :-P
LLAP

[dragonballjiujitsu]

No one should be forced to learn the terminal to use Linux. Most devs either don't understand this or don't care. I had a debate with one of my instructors in collage about which one was faster. I told him most things I could do in the GUI much faster than in terminal. I proved it. Certain tasks yes. But as for moving files and such terminal will never be faster than drag and drop...lol

As for learning more about Linux, most people don't care anything about how their OS works. They want to get things done not be a computer geek.

Xkill I always set to a key command so not need to open a terminal. I think it should come pre-programmed on all distros this way.

[milohoffman]

Windows users don't use the terminal because the windows CLI environment SUCKS. Their opinion does not matter because they have never used a real CLI.

[deltadoobyd]

I use the terminal more than the GUI for large file transfers and backups.