Good GUI are hard to make while a good cli is rather easy.

Nothing wrong with a GUI that does what it needs without fluff.

I think people are just too rigid sometimes. Some workflows are better in GUIs, some are better in CLIs. They both have upsides and downsides depending on what you're doing, and it's totally fine to prefer one to the other. Just don't let your preference keep you from learning and using other great tools!

I still do updates and most package installs through my terminal, but anything else I look for a GUI solution. I'm lazy.

I can and will terminal things, but the GUI is there so why not?

I like good GUIs. There are GUIs that are clean, responsive, well designed, and full-featured.

Sadly, that is rare nowadays, regardless if the software is FOSS or not.

It seems like for proprietary software, the corporate approach is to design slow, boring GUIs that lack most/all advanced functionality. It's designed for dumb users who just want to click and swipe.

FOSS on the other hand rarely has full or even part time UI/UX devs due to the cost. So often the GUIs are clunky, messy, and a horrible pain to navigate. The upside is that they usually have extremely deep features, but good luck finding them.

If I have to pick, FOSS all the way, but I wish I didn't have to. There are a few FOSS programs that have very nice UIs, Bitwarden, Protonmail, Musescore, Godot, and many are getting better, but the landscape is still rough out there.

As for CLI, I prefer it for some things, it's just faster depending on the function. I find myself operating with a hybrid setup now days. I have become proficient enough with the command line that I can switch seamlessly between my GUI environments and the CLI-only environments. I don't really think about it much anymore.

I'm undecided with modern GUI because most modern software is just a web page now. And it will offer you a choice between boring light mode and boring dark mode.

I miss the days of GTK2 with hundreds of themes. It was one of the main reason I switched to Linux; the customization. I don't know how many hours I must have spent on gnome-look.org. Now I don't even bother to try new themes and just use Fluent-Dark. My desktop is boring and looks like everyone else that has a dark mode. I really really miss GTK2 and all my favourite themes I can't use anymore. I tried making my own and played around with Oomox but it's not the same.

But one thing that I do prefer to be GUI now is IRC. Now that there are web clients (sigh) that can display images and videos directly in the channels, chatting in text mode only is kind of annoying with all the links we are sharing.

I like GUI's, but I prefer them simple and customizable, so I eventually want to switch away from KDE Plasma to just some window manager.

If you

• need discoverability, or
• don't need anything composable

then sure GUIs are great.

Me too bro. Me too

In the same way some GUIs are trash, lord have mercy some CLIs are trash. Things like adding two verbose flags makes it extra verbose. Things like the parameter order mattering. Yeesh. It can be rough. It really varies tool by tool.

That's totally fine. GUIs let us theme our terminal windows, tile them, jiggle them around, maybe even make them wobbly!!!

The main advantage of CLI is that its easier to instruct people on what to do and easier to get answers from people about how to use a CLI, and you can copy paste. If you know how to use the GUI though it can be a powerful tool as well.

I like a good GUI when I'm having to deal with something I'm not all that familiar with or it's something I have to do so infrequently it's not worth automating. CLIs become useful the moment either of the previous two statements no longer apply.

I like GUIs if they aren't web browsers pretending to be a desktop applications.

A well designed GUI should give you fast access to what you need and allow you to get things done easily. 

Nothing wrong with that at all. 

The controversial opinions come in the form of "GUI is better than CLI" or vice-versa. I prefer the efficiency of keyboard-only navigation/usage, but I think GUIs are cool af and a great way to be noob-friendly

okay, that was always allowed

I do too.

Nothing wrong with a GUI. There's a reason they exist and have mostly replaced TUIs, with the exception of some developer / power user tools. It's significantly easier to discover features in a GUI compared to a CLI or TUI for example. The UX can be far richer.

CLI tools are easier to make due to the simplified UX, but I'm hoping that something we see as a result of increased AI usage is that programs that should be GUI apps are actually built as such, rather than complex CLI or TUI ones.