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Can You Use Linux Without the Terminal? (How to Geek article)
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this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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So I never planned on using the cli, but the thing is, when you're following a tutorial — say you're installing/configuring something new — it is so much easier to copy/paste commands than it is to read instructions and then translate them to your own particular GUI environment. Once you've done that a few times, you're already one of us
It's better to learn how to do it in your own environment, than having to learn a whole new strange environment. Especially one that is not user friendly, with poor visual feedback, intolerant of any mistype, and requiring memorising.
But the GUI also requires memorizing — often steps that are not consistent across desktop environments, or even versions of the same one! Terminal commands otoh can be noted down for later use — and the terminal remembers them. I use the GUI for some things too tbc — it depends on your use case obvs — but you don't need to pretend the terminal is this genius-hacker level of inaccessible, because it's really not
Memorising does not need to be precise with a GUI, as you are given visual cues and can see the next step to click. You don't need to remember precisely every letter or it fails. You don't even need to remember the name of an application. The desktop app launcher shows you which apps you have installed. I often pin apps to favourites as a reminder. Some Appimage apps don't appear in the launcher. I forget I have them installed and they don't get used.
Differences between Desktop Environments are easily found when you change. As GUIs are in many users comfort zone. We use them all the time. People know their home environment, and differences need only just that discovering. Not a whole new environment.
Yeah tbc once again I do actually use a GUI as well, I just think you're doing yourself a disservice if you refuse to even try using the terminal, because it's not as hard as you're telling yourself it is. For example, typing 'firefox' and hitting enter is way easier than looking for the icon and clicking it. When I was first starting out with it, I mainly worked by cycling through previous commands with the up key. Then you learn about Ctrl+R and you are flying.
Again, if you don't want to use the terminal that's up to you, and a perfectly reasonable preference. But don't make out that you couldn't learn it very quickly if you wanted to, because you definitely could!
I launch favourite commands with 2 clicks. Once on the App launcher button, and once on the App itself. My hand is on the mouse anyway. So it's fast. Way faster than typing a whole bunch of characters. For less used apps It's 3 clicks as I'd open a category like "Media" or "Games". And doing that, I get to see what I have in there. This builds up a picture in the users head for future use. Learning "Add to favourites" is time well spent. It can even be called "Pin to Start" or "Bookmark on Launcher" it doesn't matter. You don't need to memorise that exactly like the CLI. And right-clicking things is already second nature to huge numbers of users.
So I have no incentive to use text commands. It's not faster. My hand is on the mouse for my apps anyway. And the CLI has terrible usability, via poor learnability, zero tolerance, and poor visual feedback. And completely useless for most things I do, like working with 3D models, images or drawings. I'm not a "text-worker" like IT tend to be. Plus, I want more non-IT people to use Linux, so discovering the easy ways to do things can help spread the word to them.
For me it would be like stepping off a high-speed train and walking over uneven ground instead.
Ok but if we're talking about our own personal rigs, I launch favorite commands with one keystroke. I absolutely guarantee I can boot up my computer, navigate to whatever working directory and already have gotten to work before you've clicked on your second icon. But it's different use cases isn't it? I can definitely see how if you're using the mouse anyway, a GUI suits you better. I work mainly with text, but so do most people, I think? It's terms like "terrible usability" etc that I'm taking issue to here, because you're talking out of your arse. You admit that you've never bothered to learn, then make sweeping proclamations as if everyone on earth uses their computer primarily for Blender
Terrible usability will be the right term, if someone suggests applying one type of UI to an inappropriate situation/user/task. Such suggestions sadly seem to happen a lot in the Linux space. And saying CLI is easier is a sweeping proclamation. Whereas I've avoided making sweeping proclamations, repeatedly describing the many cases where CLI is poor. Usability analysis needs to know about the user and the situation. It's not one size fits all.
I've used various command line systems a lot in the past.
I'm saying it's more productive for many to invest in extending learning their home environment than learning a completely unfamiliar and inappropriate environment.
Your criticisms are literally general ones. You've only gone into specifics to describe the configuration of your favorites bar in detail for some reason. I've been saying throughout this conversation that it's a question of use case — that making general statements about 'usability' overlook a whole host of users; the visually impaired being one example that comes immediately to mind. The point is that there should be options, and people shouldn't be put off from trying different things until they find what works for them, because for everyone who needs a GUI-only approach, there is someone else who would benefit from a bit of CLI in their workflow but has been told it's beyond them when it really isn't.