Can You Use Linux Without the Terminal? (How to Geek article)
Can You Use Linux Without the Terminal? (How to Geek article)
The short answer is yes. But the interesting part - and I'm talking from personal experience - is that from the moment you realize just how easy and powerful using the console is, you learn how to use it.
And it does not mean you are going to turn into a full on expert or geek, tinkering around the console. You just learn a few simple commands that enable you to do something (or somethings) quicker, easier and cleaner than going through a GUI.
Can you? Yes. Should you? No.
I've always thought GUIs felt more like doing things by hand and CLIs felt more like having the computer do it for you. Like if you want to do some complicated task that requires multiple programs and lots of menus using a GUI, it's easy the first time, but once you need to do it a second time you have to do it all over again by hand. But if you do it from the command line, while it might be harder the first time, subsequent times are zero effort because you can just run the exact same commands again from your history or combine them into one or a script to make it even easier.
That it is. In GUI, you’re working for the computer to achieve your goals. At the CLI, you invest time teaching the computer what you want done, and it works for you.
For many people it's not quicker or easier. If they've not used CLI before, they'd need to learn multiple new things. Going to a Web browser for help every time, before doing something is not quick. Memorising precise command strings that mean nothing to the user, is not easy for many either. For them it's bad usability.
from the moment you realize just how easy and powerful using the console is, you learn how to use it
Yes, I understand that; there is a learning curve. For some, too steep.
And even if you did manage to do something 2 years ago, you can’t remember how to do it today. Do you really want up go down that same rabbit hole again? Spending 5 minutes reading stuff and running a single command takes a lot more time than 15 mouse clicks.
Agreed. I’m not super computer geeky compared to this website. A bunch of people here would probably not even consider me techy.
That said, I hated the command line and would actively avoid it as often as possible. Once I started using it (just to paste code from tutorials) and then later to cd into folders so I can run an old game .exe with WINE, and then to straight up command line tools for converting .bin and .cue files into workable ISOs (also for old games), I started seeing with the command line is so sick.
I’m converted. It’s great. It’s not as spooky as it looks. Make the background 50% transparent.
Make the background 50% transparent.
I love this little line tacked at the end of your comment. I love that this is how the terminal is no longer scary-looking.
I feel like I only use ls, cd and apt update & apt upgrade. Other commands are for when e.g. hardware malfunctions.
If that is enough for your needs, that's fine.
Kinda disappointing.
The article is really trying to sell us, the reader, that using Linux without knowing how to use the command line is not only possible but totally feasible. Unfortunately, after each paragraph that expresses that sentiment we are treated to up to several paragraphs on how it's totally easier, faster, and more powerful to do things via thé command line, and hey did you know that more people like coding on Linux than windows? Did you know you can do more powerful things with bash, awk, and sed than you ever could in a file manager?!
FFS
vimandnanoare brought up and vim's "shortcuts" are praised... in an article on how you can totally use Linux through a gui and never need to open up the command line.Who is this written for? outside of people who not only already use Linux but are convinced that using any other OS is both a moral failing and a form of self-harm?
For clarity's sake: I have been daily driving Linux, specifically ArchLinux, for the past 9 years, across a rotation of laptop and desktop computers. I do almost everything in the command line and prefer it that way.
I still think if you want people to try Linux you need to chill the fuck out on getting them to use the command line. At the very least, until they're actually interested in using Linux on their own.
It is for the sake of combatting the commonly held belief that you can't do anything without the terminal in Linux.
Progress on the accessiblility, and GUI centric applications and functionality in Linux has been huge in the last decade or two. It is now entirely possible to use a Linux system while rarely needing the terminal. And if you have someone techy helping set it up for you then it is possible to never have to.
Yes, my mom does.
Yes you can but you often see the terminal used when helping people online. This is because it works across desktop environments and mostly across distros, however it does give the impression that the terminal is needed.
I didn't see anyone else mention this but, as someone who uses Linux Mint, if you are going to install software through the Software Manager, read the reviews for the app you want before downloading it. Linux Mint's Software Manager is full of apps that are so outdated that some of them aren't even compatible with the current version of Linux Mint. There are other issues as well, like how there are at least 20 different versions of Wine and most of them are very old versions. I'd understand if they want to keep legacy apps for the older, still supported, versions of Linux Mint but it can be confusing to use sometimes.
I really don't understand why issues like this are so prevalent in Mint and yet people still recommend it as a beginner distro. Just use Neon or Fedora or anything else that doesn't have these issues.
I think people are used to app store idea, so I bet reading reviews is also a given.
Even basic things in distros are quite different, for example the frontend for settings, so tech support threads will show how to do it in the backend. Oh well, but then there's someone who suggests
sudo nano /etc/default/grubIf you're a noob, run this and get a "nano: command not found" error, you'll google it and learn to resolve it using
apt. However, Manjaro's package manager ispacmanbut you don't know, so you installaptusing a weird guide without knowing what it even is. The next update then wreaks havoc on your system.My first install ended in a dependency hell because of this.
I've been daily driving Linux Mint for 10 years now. The answer to this question is "for what most people consider everyday usage, you have to use the Linux terminal about as often as you have to edit the Windows registry." And in fact over the 10 years I've been a Linux user, GUI tools in Linux are increasingly available, and I've heard Windows normies talking about the registry more.
When I started out, Mint shipped with Synaptic Package Manager, and a lot of distros didn't include a GUI at all. Now GUI package managers are the rule rather than the exception and most have bespoke polished app store -like things. You of course can still use apt or dnf or pacman or whatever, but you decreasingly have to.
I never once touched the registry on my Win 98, Win XP, Win Vista or Win 7 machines. Win 8 required a couple registry keys to turn off that...curtain that you had to click away to get to the login screen? and a few other "tablet first" features Win 8 had, and now I hear "just go and add these registry keys to put the start menu on the left, turn off ads, re-enable right click and retract the rectal thermometer."
Linux is becoming more normie friendly while Windows is genuinely becoming less normie friendly.
The real question is: "would you want to?"
Or "why would you?"
Heck yeah I would love to never use the terminal. The terminal is the biggest roadblock for me adopting Linux. I never, ever want to open it. If I have to open it, Linux has failed for me as a windows replacement.
I want to try Linux again, and I have dipped my toes many times, but the terminal is the major block for me, a slightly above average pc user.
You forgot the
/s
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I've tried to run Ubuntu, mint, Debian, and couple other distros without the terminal to see if I can actually recommend it to non-geeks. And every time, I conclude I can't because the fucking "software center" (or whatever it's called) is always garbage, and it's easier to just use apt.
The only time I'll recommend Linux to a non-tech person is when the hardware is so old that it would just be junked without Linux.
Not sure if Bauh is available for Debian and it's derivatives, but it's an amazing software center. If anything, use synaptic on Debian. It's much better than any software center there.
And apt is just the beginning of it. It's not that uncommon for apt to not work either.
Specially when it's hijacked to run other things instead (cough cough snaps).
Keep in mind, most people would be coming from windows where installing software is going to some website, hoping it isn't a fake malware site, running their exe with admin privileges, and clicking next through a bunch of eulas until it finally is done. By comparison even the worst software centers are an improvement.
Using screenshots, demonstrate to me how the current edition of Linux Mint's Software Manager application is "garbage" and show me how the Apple App Store, Google Play Store or the Windows Store is better.
I can agree that there are not great software managers out there, Pop!_Shop always felt like it was malfunctioning to me, and Synaptic Package Manager works but has some significant klunk, but...what's wrong with Mint Software Manager that anyone else gets right.
The author argues that you don’t need to use the terminal but constantly argues that you should. The average computer user doesn’t even know which version of Windows they’re using. Many don’t even know if they’re using Windows or Mac. Until Linux gets over the obsession with the terminal we’re never going to have the year of Linux.
I agree with the author then.
What's wrong with using the cli? People act like it's some arcane dark magic...
You're typing things in a small box here rather than clicking on icons to reply. Sometimes text is just better.
The problem with the cli is you need to memorize a whole bunch of new words and syntax in order to do anything. You also need to memorize what not to do so you don't accidentally erase your system while using rm or cp or whatever.
Even something as simple as copying and pasting, which works the same in every single other program has new rules in the terminal. I mean, think about that. If you're just learning bash, then the first thing you'll be doing is copy pasting commands. But even that has the hurdle of 'oh, I guess this is the one program where ctrl-c means something else
Like, how do you look at sudo, cat, man, and apt, and think 'yeah that's intuitive'. And forget about multitasking, new users won't even know how to quit most programs (is it ctrl-q? Just q? Esc? Ctrl-c? Ctrl-d? Wait how do I undo that, is it ctrl-z? Wait where did the thing go
You know not everyone likes to read a wall of text. Some people prefer watching a video than reading an article. So some people just like to use GUI than CLI, and that's fine.
I disagree. Many people like to have control over there computer even if they don't want to learn a bunch of new skills.
Linux isn't for everyone but its gotten to the point where someone could figure it out if they so choose. It no longer is the unstable mess it was 10-20 years ago.
If you want a non-terminal os based on linux you just have to make something like android or chromeos or steamdeckos.
Those are and pretty popular, so I don't know who can claim linux is "terminal obsessed" it's just a kernel and there is a wide diversity of os based on it.Debian , fedora , suse etc might all be "obsessed" with the terminal.
For me that's just the obvious economical way to offer features. decent GUI costs a lot more to develop and document - so you have to have less features for a given amount of dev time. Or you have google /valve/microsoft type amounts of resources to spend.I always thought this "year of linux" thing was a meme to make fun of canonical or idiotic tech journalists .
Is anyone realitsitcally interested in volunteering their time to win over legions of Microsoft fanboys. Fuck me sounds like hell.And frankly the use of terminal is going to be far from the first blocker to linux adoption for those who don't even know they're using windows or mac.
This whole threat is a HUGE circle jerk and a collection of all the "I USE ARCH BTW" variations imaginable.
"WHY WOULDN'T ALL PEOPLE WANT THE KNOWLEDGE TO CRAFT COMMANDS TO MANIPULATE, FILTER AND SEARCH TEXT IN A WHOLE FILE SYSTEM WITH JUST ONE COMMAND? UNCULTURED PESANTS"
Come, not everyone is a computer nerd, nor everyone ones to optimize 30s in the workflow if it means memorizing a bunch of commands, their syntax and options.
If you want to use Linux without the terminal nowadays it's pretty easy. But also I think the fear of the terminal is part of the culture that consumer electronics have cultivated where people don't know (or want to know) how their systems work.
If you take the time to use it, not only can you save yourself time, but also learn a lot more about how you can fix things when they go wrong! That kind of knowledge gives you so much more ownership of your system, because you don't have to rely on your manufacturer to solve problems for you.
Same for Mac and Windows too, the terminal is something that shouldn't be necessary, but when it is it helps to know what you're doing. :)
I think not everyone needs to know how their device works. Specialization is what advances us as humans after all. If they wanted to know, good for them, and if they don't also good for them. If I were using a car, I don't need to know how the engine convert a chemical energy, transfer power, and generate thrust
Edit just to give an example, an office worker may only need to use a word processor and their OS be up to date. If the user can just click the GUI to update the OS rather than typing the command for whatever package manager the OS uses, it is good enough for him. Sysadmin can give them the instruction once and done.
If the user forgot the instruction, they can explore it on their own with GUI without internet since no matter how deep a GUI config is, then there must be a way to get there (assuming the UI designer isn't shit). Contrast that with CLI where if you forgot or don't know any command there is little help or indicator of what's available and what can be done without external help.
There is a large degree of willful ignorance. Its 2024 and the degree of computer illiteracy is astounding.
I was an 80s kid but even I grew up with computers: Atari, Commodore and Amstrad. I then learnt PCs with DOS. All pretty much self learnt from 8 years old as no one else in my family knew shit about computers so I was on my own.
These days computers are so user friendly ad practically run themselves, even Linux but the amount of people who cant perform basic computer tasks even in Windows is unbelievable. Do they even still teach computers at schools anymore?
Do you know how everything in your house works? How to repair everything? No right?
Would you be brave enough to mess with the grounding of your house, or the AC or the heaters, the washing machine, the doors? Not eveyone wants mess with every (subsystem) thing in their house/live"
Most of the people I know want their PC to work and if somwthing goes wrong they just send it to repair or ask somebody else to fix it, they don't wanna do it themselves, which I find normal, they have little to no interesting in PCs, and that is compleatly fine.
And before someone says "Yeah, but the computer won't kill you if you fuck up the fixing or messing, let me tell you, a "sudo rm -r" or "sudo chown -R" can fuck you system BAR, making you loose important data and info.
-...But refugee -I hear you about to type-, they SHOULD have 10921 back-ups in atleast 2542 independent locations. Yo, they don't wanna even see the terminal, and you want them to interest themselves for data integrity and redundacy? Come on.
Yes. I've been using Ubuntu and now Kubuntu for about 12 years and I don't use the CLI. I don't play computer maintenance guy, so don't need any weird hacks. I just use my applications, which all have GUIs. I don't need the CLI despite people telling me I need to use it. They have never tried GUI only. So they don't know what they are talking about. The next lot, who typically have no idea about usability, tell me I'm missing out on something. But it's always something I've never needed. If I were to use the CLI, I would need to spend ages researching not just some command, but a whole lot of other concepts that I have no clue about, only to forget it all if I ever need that again. So not as fast as people claim. Luckily, Desktop Environment developers know this and put a lot of effort into making them user friendly. They understand usability. And that different users have different needs.
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
I am a gui only user. AMA. I have to use command line occasionally but it's less than once a month, if that. Im on EndeavourOS desktop for over 2 years with Bauh managing updates. My home server runs Unraid with a web GUI interface maybe used CLI twice in 5 years? They told me Linux could be what I wanted it to be. I don't want to use command line, so I don't!
On the rare occasions you need to use a terminal, how often is it for something completely new? Something you need to look up to understand?
Also, how often is the MAN page enough lookup, without having to sift through 17 sites than are describing subtly different things?
I find the documentation to be very good for Arch based distros. The EOS forums or Archlinux.org wiki almost always has what I need. Otherwise the github page usually has Arch install directions that are very clear. The major things I've had to do in terminal is just initial set up of applications, enabling things to run on startup or changing configs. For example, and this is the most complicated example I can think of. I use grub-btrfs to put my Timeshift snapshots into the grub menu. All I really had to do was 3 commands:
sudo systemctl start grub-btrfsd
sudo systemctl enable grub-btrfsd
sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd
The first two commands start the daemon and set it to run on start up, the 3rd command is editing the config so I could use Timeshift over Snapper. Again this is the most complicated example I can think of and its 3 lines. Not only that but I was able to find documentation on two different sites. In under a minute of googling.
Endeavour is a great example for gui only users for sure.
Yes, I do it every day, on my Android phone, router, printer, television, speakers, smart hub, smartwatch, cable box, car, and everything else running Linux underhood.
In my firs time with linux I install ubuntu (maybe 12.04, I dont't remember, it was gnome 2) in the only PC in my parents home, I delete windows, and we was using it 2 years without knowing what is a terminal and everything went fine, the problems appeard when I was discover the terminal hahahaha
Recently I tried a new, modern distro: Solus.
After installation, I survived about 10 minutes without a command line and the next thing I needed was their package manager's manual (because that fancy GUI software shop simply killed itself)
No big deal for me. I feel safe on these paths. But IMHO "Linux without command line" is still only a dream.
I think that is simply because it was some new random distro. I bet debian or fedora with kde and the discover app would be just fine for most people.
Based on my experience, I think you can. Many distros nowadays offer ways to do things without the use of the terminal. In Linux Mint, for example, you can rely solely on the Update Manager to update all installed applications and modules rather than using the terminal. You can also uninstall apps by right-clicking on them in the Menu and selecting the uninstall option. And finally, if you want to move files around, even to some locations that require root, you can do that using the File Explorer app (e.g. Nemo).
That being said, when I started on my Linux journey, I made it a point to actually learn some terminal commands, because I saw it as an important feature in Linux and a good skill to possess.
For me, the terminal is something I’ll learn once I’m more familiar with which apps I like. Until then, it’s nice to have something like pamac to help me find the thing I need.
Yeah, obviously, or the title wouldn't even have happened.
And it's been that way for a while now. Back when windows 10 happened, I was able to install mint, get most of my preferred programs set up, and handle data transfer with zero CLI use. Which was awesome, because my dyslexic ass would have taken forever otherwise. It wasn't until I started putzing around for pop and giggles that I even opened a terminal.
My mom w as able to jump right in after installation of mint, and go through the gui to try things out, no issues.
I'm sure you could but why? Terminal is so useful. Am I out of touch?
You may be out of touch with people that are used to GUI. For example, during the first installation of linux distro after the user is landed on their DE, as far as I know, no distro ever curates the terminal to them. Like "this is the menu", "this is the terminal emulator", and even after the user managed to open the terminal, it is not obvious what to do next as there is only text prompt. Remember, users using GUI usually encounter text prompts with some hint (username, comment, email). Meanwhile the terminal has nothing. Suddenly you see the user you are logged in as and a blinking cursor. After that, how do you know what apps are installed? What commands can you call? Typing help doesn't always help on every distro. Again, remember, users using GUI will see what apps are installed usually using a menu of some sort. There is a lot of friction coming from GUI if you have never encountered CLI before. Heck, I bet some people have never installed an application outside from an app store or their commissioned device. Even a file explorer concept is foreign to some.
Wack
Microsoft is one of if not the biggest and richest companies in the world and they got that way on a strategy based on the public's fear and hatred of reading comprehension.
I have a theory that the crowd of people who learned computers or iPads etc from GUIs only, they have a harder time with terminal. Those who used DOS a lot find it to be a happy space.
I don't think it's a theory rather than an objective fact. A lot of "traditional" computer skills have almost totally gone extinct because consumer devices are designed to hide as many system features from you as possible.
The saving grace is that even being raised without it, you end up needing these skills to become a developer of any decent calibre. That gives at least some route for these skills to transfer to new generations.
Most people on this planet simply do not care. They don't want to learn terminal and you cannot change their minds. But they still need a desktop OS that works, so we have to give it to them unless you want everyone to stay on Windows forever.
Only 5-8% of the population is even tech-savvy.
In your opinion what makes a terminal program "more useful" than a GUI program with the exact same functionality? Genuinely curious because it's a perspective I cannot wrap my brain around lol
The flaw is in the question: terminal apps practically always include more functionality especially for batch processing and automation of tasks.
I'll give an example: Find me a GUI application that can quickly convert a gigabyte of .doc files into .pdf format. Pandoc can do that with a single command.
Also: You're probably comparing the process of "using" a GUI app with "using" a terminal app, in other words, if you spend 8 hours sitting in front of Premiere or KDENLIVE clicking a mouse, you expect to do the same job with ffmpeg by sitting in front of it for 8 hours typing commands, right? But that's not how it's designed to work; it's designed for you to write scripts that do the things you commonly do, which takes time to do once, then you run those scripts, maybe even from the GUI.
I'll give a real example: the software I use for my personal journal is called RedNotebook. This stores the data in a human readable markup format (I think it's YAML?) and displays it in rich text, including the ability to display inline pictures. I like putting pictures in my journal.
First problem: what it actually does is store a relative path to the location of the picture in your file system; if ever I was to change the location in my file system where I store the journal or my pictures, or change operating systems, this would break. So I created a Pictures folder within the Journal folder to copy all pictures there.
Second problem: My phone takes 12MP or larger pictures and the journal displays them at full scale so they take up the whole screen. I'd like to shrink them.
Third problem: The app's "Insert picture" funcionality opens a file browser window written in QT which is different than the one from most of my GTK-based desktop apps use and I'd have to manually find the file.
Simultaneous solution: I wrote a short bash script that calls ImageMagick to shrink the image among a few other cleanup details, and builds the appropriate string to paste into my journal and puts that string in the primary buffer. I then wrote a Nemo Action so that the option to run this script appears in the context menu iff I right click on exactly one image file. Now I can add an image to my journal by browsing to its location in my file manager, right clicking, clicking Add To Journal, and then middle clicking in RedNotebook where I want to paste the picture.
There are hundreds of tedious little things I would do over and over again clicking through endless menus, windows and dialogs that I can script away, like paving my own bypass lane.
Simple example: installing stuff. Much faster and simpler to type "install foo" in cli than open a gui, searching for it, finding the right one, clicking install.
Same for updating: it takes me 2s to type the command to update all packages, that's less than the time I need to move my mouse to the icon of the package manager.
I can't personally, but I've installed/set up Linux systems for quite a lot of older people, and I think only one of them ever uses the terminal for anything. The rest just... use the computer.
On the whole, they're pretty much just using Libreoffice, Firefox and a few other bits these days. If something needs the terminal to fix, we're already past the point where they've phoned me to pop round and fix it.
These used to be Ubuntu systems, but I switched them all to Mint after having endless Snap permission problems with printers, USB sticks and other peripherals. Once up and running, it's pretty low maintenance.
I guess they don't need to use the terminal, because I'll go and do it if it's necessary - but we are looking at once every few years. Not a lot of tech support needed.
On my own machine, I probably use the terminal every day.
Interestingly enough, Xfce4 has a kiosk mode. You could build a custom desktop for them and restrict changes. You then could do mass updates with Ansible or Saltstack
It's a good plan for a more professional setup, but in this distinctly unprofessional setup, if I did it remotely, I wouldn't get my chat and a cup of tea and biscuit :)
Yes you can but why would you not use the terminal. It's bloody handy.
Eh, you really can't. Linux without the terminal only enables about 5% of the functionality available the user.
Linux geeks like to imagine a hypothetical "average user" who never needs to adjust settings or install anything beyond a web browser. But a person looking for that limited of functionality while also knowing how to install an operating system is not an average user.
I disagree. I've used KDE's discover thingy to install stuff basically through dnf on fedora. It's incredibly possible for the average user, who basically just browses the web and maybe writes documents.
Package management is probably the biggest thing a Linux user might need to use the terminal for. The graphical package managers used by default on most desktop environments are far too limited.
KDE's Discover for instance is capable of installing (graphical) desktop applications, uninstalling packages and performing updates. Sure, it supports native packages on the majority of distros through PackageKit, as well as Flatpaks and Snaps, but it can only perform very basic package manager operations. I imagine most users will at some point need to install a package that isn't a graphical desktop application, such as a driver or an optional dependency and they will need to use the terminal for it.
To my knowledge, this is also the state of most other graphical package managers that take the form of "software centers" like Discover. More powerful graphical package managers do exist, usually specific to a specific package manager such as Octopi for Pacman. Few distros ship with them, however. I believe one notable exception is OpenSUSE with YaST. There's also dnfdragora on Fedora, which is pretty basic, but might be good enough for most purposes.
There is also Synaptic which is a graphical front-end for apt, although I would definitely class it as less user friendly than Discover and the like.
I know if I was doing some Linux challenge with no terminal it would have to be my crutch.
Edit: Arch Linux has pamac which I used more frequently than the terminal back then.
The real question is -- can you use the Terminal without Linux?
@cafuneandchill @possiblylinux127 BSD, or WSL, but before you see what you CAN do, think whether you SHOULD
Yes. There's BSDs and BusyBox.
MacOS?
I think tools like YaST help to save time, instead of editing the bootloader in config files, you can simply enter, search for "Boot Loader" and edit there, be following a tutorial or official documentation. I sometimes prefer to use YaST just so I don't do things wrong. it's like the old Control Panel in Windows.
YaST is great.
Ιt depends on your competence. My mom's laptop is Debian with XFCE (2 GB RAM old Chromebook converted to run Debian) and of course, she doesn't use the terminal. But then again, she doesn't even know how to open a new tab on Chrome. She just uses 1 tab at the time (which is why it's enough with 2 GB of RAM). So she's never going to see a terminal in her life, and it's going to work just fine for her, since the only thing she does on a computer is load 1 tab on Chrome, and mostly use Facebook, or youtube, or news/recipe sites that I have put on her bookmark bar. When the computer needs to be updated, I do it for her once a month or so (using the terminal).
But if you're trying to do a lot more than that, then maybe, sometimes, you will need to fix or change things using the terminal.
To all the people pointing the many inconsistencies of Linux/specific distros, I recommend The Unix Haters' Handbook
My aunt is using Linux without terminal since 2016. Though she at least knows how to open terminal and paste commands when it's necessary (needed a couple of times).
Same here. My Dad has been using Mint for years now, and wouldn't know what to do in the command line. He gets on, does what he needs to do, and it just works for him.
You can use Linux without a terminal, but life is so much easier to just remember few letters (command) and pressing enter instead remembering 200 places where a setting is. You can also always just do
sudo pacman --help.Strong disagree lol but I understand your logic. I am a visual learner and it is a lot easier for me to understand what the structure and options are in a given program when I have a GUI.
To me the terminal feels like a scalpel. It's a precise instrument, but only you need to know exactly what you're slicing into.
So many comments here saying you don't need the terminal for full functionality.... What Distro are you people using??? How do you install programs not in the "software center" and how do you edit config files? How do you configure a network share? I don't really think you guys are thinking this through.
For any use-cases beyond a very limited chromebook-like functionality, Linux is absolutely not fully usable without access to the terminal.
Well if i double-click a file I've made executable, it will ask if I'd like to run it, and most software will have a github or downloads page that will give you direct downloads to the software.
In other words, I can successfully install things like a windows user, I just have to go the extra step to open the file's properties and make it executable with the GUI first.
Apt is faster, and it's also faster to do a direct download, make it executable, then execute it in the terminal, too. But I CAN do it.
Config files can be edited in the GUI text editor, it's just slower.
To test my claim and prove your third point, this link is the repository for a samba GUI, found at https://www.samba.org/samba/GUI/. Specifically, it's SMB4K, the first one.
Convenient? No. Would it update automatically? No. Do I want to do it this way, or recommend it? Still no. But it does function.
In other words, I can successfully install things like a windows user, I just have to go the extra step to open the file’s properties and make it executable with the GUI first.
Some programs can be installed this way, but it's extremely far from universal.
Config files can be edited in the GUI text editor
Not without opening them as root, which in every distro I know of, requires the terminal.
To test my claim and prove your third point, this link is the repository for a samba GUI
The install directions for that program involve the terminal.
I spend a lot of time arguing against Manjaro. That said, Manjaro comes with a GUI package manager that provides access to the AUR.
What software are you using that is not available in the Manjaro repos or AUR? My guess is that the majority of people would never need to install anything more.
I think it is actually quite likely that most people never need more than what is in the Ubuntu repos. However, I am not as confident to stand behind that claim.
Network share from the file manager does not seem such a stretch:
https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/nautilus-connect.html.en
Any modern distro.
There are GUI methods for adding repositories to every major software center to my knowledge, and it isn't very hard.
Kate, and other modern file editors are more than equipped to handle some config files, that's probably the simplest thing ever.
There are multiple GUI front ends for samba.
Don't comment on the usability of Linux GUI if you haven't even tried in the last 20 years like seriously
Any modern distro.
I don't suppose you could give the name of a distro that achieves full functionality purely in the GUI?
The normal people doesn't install software external to the store or configure the system a lot, in IOS you can't do this things and everyone is fine. For share network in gnome you can do it with a button in the WiFi settings
Y tho
Just use openSuse. With Tumblweed you even get a a rolling distro that does not require any terminal use.
You can. Most things have gui options.
But you quickly learn for somethings. The terminal is just easier.
If you ignore odd stuff. Most everyday stuff to maintain the system is available in a controlled panal like program. It varies based on distribution and windows manager. But the basic setup is there for most things.
Its when you want to do something creative it gets more complex. While most commands have gui apps. Most online guidance will just find the terminal an easy way to guide you.
...well... that is how I started learning (and getting used to) GNU/Linux, so eh.
Can you live without using your thumbs?
To be fair you can't use windows without using the terminal. And you have to open regedit to turn off a lot of annoying crap
Not truth. I'm an only Linux user for 5 years now, but windows could work without terminal for 99% of the users.
If you are an exception, like me, it doesn't count.
Why would you want to?
How can I trust an application that was installed by a "Software Manager" that doesn't have super cow powers?
This is more a question for non-power users. They are the key to widespread adoption and supplanting Windows. The OS has to be user friendly to the point that people don’t need to worry about the terminal unless absolutely necessary but still flexible enough to not alienate the power users that want to dive deep into it.
Yeah, right.
Now please follow the official instructions to installed docker and compose on Ubuntu.
- Install Docker
- Install Portainer CE
Done.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#installation-methods
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/#manage-docker-as-a-non-root-user
How do I follow those instructions without the commandline?