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I love these types of guides, especially when they cover pieces under the hood like TTYs. I find that most people who don't use terminals don't do it out of pu

I love these types of guides, especially when they cover pieces under the hood like TTYs. I find that most people who don't use terminals don't do it out of pure preference for GUIs over CLIs. Instead, they use GUIs because they simply don't want to spend time learning how to use CLIs. If they did, I bet 90% of people would move over.

sbuk 4y ago
I started out as a sysadmin on VME, moving to SunOS/Solaris in the mid 90s. I worked largely on DEC VT100 and subsequently a I had a Sun Ultra 5 workstation. I can genuinely argue that I have more real world CLI time under my belt that your average HNer. I have extremely fond memories of that time, but I don’t miss it. I’m much happier with a GUI to click around. I still drop into the terminal to complete some tasks, more out of habit than anything else but the idea of going back to using a terminal 90% of the time just doesn’t fill me with joy. There is a lot of fetishisation of tools, especially of terminals and the CLI. Admittedly things are a better now in someways, in others, not so much.
velhartice 4y ago
Why should I have to take a computer science course and memorize a whole language to install a program, manipulate files, change a configuration, etc… Not all of us who use computers for a living are programmers. I manage several computers that perform different tasks, but thats only part of my job. Dropping into CLI is something I only need to do a few times a year only because some of the software I use has no other UI. I’ll posit that people like myself use GUIs much easier because they are self learning. I don’t need a CS degree just to use it, all the options are laid before me to see at once. It’s the fastest way for me to do what I want with the software and move on with my life.
- h4n1 4y ago
  I'm not a programmer either. I just started running Linux out of curiosity, followed a few "copy-paste this into your terminal" guides, eventually got the hang of it and now I do almost everything in it. It both is and isn't "a whole language". Most commands just execute a single program with options and/or arguments, except you don't have the overhead of opening a GUI, finding the right dropdown menu, etc. You quickly start to pick it up like you would a spoken language, remembering the "words" for actions, and it becomes a very natural way to think. IMO the biggest stumbling block is just learning how to type efficiently. This includes knowing about tab completion, history search, putting stuff in your .bashrc and so on.

sbuk 4y ago

I started out as a sysadmin on VME, moving to SunOS/Solaris in the mid 90s. I worked largely on DEC VT100 and subsequently a I had a Sun Ultra 5 workstation. I can genuinely argue that I have more real world CLI time under my belt that your average HNer. I have extremely fond memories of that time, but I don’t miss it. I’m much happier with a GUI to click around. I still drop into the terminal to complete some tasks, more out of habit than anything else but the idea of going back to using a terminal 90% of the time just doesn’t fill me with joy. There is a lot of fetishisation of tools, especially of terminals and the CLI. Admittedly things are a better now in someways, in others, not so much.

velhartice 4y ago

Why should I have to take a computer science course and memorize a whole language to install a program, manipulate files, change a configuration, etc… Not all of us who use computers for a living are programmers. I manage several computers that perform different tasks, but thats only part of my job. Dropping into CLI is something I only need to do a few times a year only because some of the software I use has no other UI. I’ll posit that people like myself use GUIs much easier because they are self learning. I don’t need a CS degree just to use it, all the options are laid before me to see at once. It’s the fastest way for me to do what I want with the software and move on with my life.

h4n1 4y ago
I'm not a programmer either. I just started running Linux out of curiosity, followed a few "copy-paste this into your terminal" guides, eventually got the hang of it and now I do almost everything in it. It both is and isn't "a whole language". Most commands just execute a single program with options and/or arguments, except you don't have the overhead of opening a GUI, finding the right dropdown menu, etc. You quickly start to pick it up like you would a spoken language, remembering the "words" for actions, and it becomes a very natural way to think. IMO the biggest stumbling block is just learning how to type efficiently. This includes knowing about tab completion, history search, putting stuff in your .bashrc and so on.