Now I appreciate the CLI *caution, potential novel ahead ;) *

[UniverseA7X]

Well. I never before thought that the CLI could do so much for me. I mean, I come from GUI city with Mac OS X and the like. But here is my story.

I am on a computer I built a while back. Core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz, 1.5 GB RAM. Nice 19 inch screen. Simply put, I'm happy. :)

Now I have a 500GB Hard drive on this particular computer, and on my macbook, I have 250GB, which goes by fast since I am a download *****. (I like to try out different linux distros in Parallels.) So I wanted to rip all my DVDs to this Ubuntu tower that I built.

On my mac, I like to use the open source Handbrake for a ripper. Now on Mac OS X, it's got a nice GUI and all the like, and I knew it was available on the linux platform as well. So I headed over to the website to find that it was CLI only. Now I've used the terminal here and there, so I was ready to learn how to use this program in the terminal. So I read the documentation, and then realized how SIMPLE it was compared to the GUI to rip the DVD in the preset i wanted. I just have to enter my source, the output, and the preset i want to use, and press enter, and it does everything for me. Now i realize how a bunch of work could be cut down with one command. Kinda made me appreciate the linux OS a bit more, as well as open source.

Anyway, that's MY learning experience of the night. :D

[bufsabre666]

its the old story with me, when i was a newbie, i feared the command line, now i use it so much i have 3 keyboard shortcuts for it, after almost 5 years of off and on linux i really cant get by without it.

i less than three (<3) the command line

[toupeiro]

I think I would seriously struggle without the CLI. Every Operating system I've ever used from the first time I sat in front of a keyboard had a CLI. I used, and still very frequently use the CLI in windows administration as well as UNIX and Linux. I never understood the fear of it really. Years back before I got familiar with all the new windows 95 GUI shortcuts via the keyboard and various mouse clicks, I always feared drag-and-dropping never knowing if it were going to try to copy or move my files, and in some cases it would do one over the other depending on the source or destination (network versus local. Windows network versus Novell etc etc..) It was a big GUI transition from 3.1 to 95, and equally so with NT, 2000, XP and Vista. Most of the file operations have remained consistent at the fundamental GUI level, and the stability has improved over time, but I still find some actions to be easier at the CLI. I definately don't feel any more secure with vista prompting me every time I want to move something, just annoyed, hehe. at least at a CLI, cp is cp and mv is mv.. :)

[matthew]

Congratulations. You've just taken your first step into a larger world. :)

[SupaSonic]

It's funny how people come here and say how CLI is obsolete and we need to use GUIs instead... Yet we still all type in URLs in browsers, and I don't see anyone complaining.

It's a matter of perspective. You need to use the right tools for the job, and with linux it's more often than not the CLI.

[hanzomon4]

Perhaps but that's because we don't have enough working gui tools, like for xconfiguration. The CLI is a great tool don't get me wrong but sometimes the ease of use and small learning curve of gui-tools is more important then being able to do something fast with a few esoteric key strokes.

For example: If I want to move a ton of mp3 files from different sub-folders of my music folder, with other file types in the same folders, to one mp3 folder; I'd use find not the gui.

But if I want to play music or check my email the gui rules even though I could do the same in the CLI

[NovaAesa]

The terminal makes me go happy face.

[hessiess]

but sometimes the ease of use and small learning curve of gui-tools is more important

try Blender, or any outher high fetured 3D app for that matter. just becouse something has a GUI dosent meen its easy to use.

[spupy]

I used to use the terminal a lot. Now I don't use terminal apps instead of gui (apart from nano and htop - irreplaceable)

I still write scripts, but I try to use the command line less. I just make my scripts with a zenity gui and place an icon to run them. In fact my fluxbox desktop is like a car that runs ok, but its parts are held together by duct tape, but in this case the duct tape is scripts, it's just you can't see them! ;) To put it another way, I use the CLI as the backend of my system.

Too much CLI is too geeky, imho.

[BDNiner]

The CLI is amazing, even more so once you get into scripting.

[RiceMonster]

I prefer the command line for a lot of things. At first I used to use gui apps a lot more because I didn't know how to do anything, but then I realized you can simple type "man <command>" and all the information I needed was right there. I think you need a good mix of the two. GUI is better for some things, and CLI for others.


(apart from nano and htop - irreplaceable)
vim :) (not the way it's set up by default on Ubuntu though).

[Trail]

For example: If I want to move a ton of mp3 files from different sub-folders of my music folder, with other file types in the same folders, to one mp3 folder; I'd use find not the gui.

Take a look into "locate" by the way, it's faster.