Why do you use the terminal?

Hi, everybody Recently, a guy noticed that I was using it and asked why? For me it because in Linux many things are done through the terminal because Linux has many different desktop environments

He also compared terminal commands with cheat codes in GTA and other games, he understands what benefits you take from them, but not from terminal commands

RedBauble,

I really despise the use of the mouse, in some way it just feels somewhat wrong, especially the need to constantly move one hand between the mouse and the keyboard. Also I’m way faster at typing that I am pointing and clicking around looking for the right button to press. Terminal commands offer a simple and expressive way to interact with the computer.

pete_the_cat,

It’s more efficient, and for years (actually like a decade) it was the primary way of interfacing with a computer.

Ozy,

many programs don’t offer a gui so I’m forced to use it.

luthis,

For a lot of what I do, its the only way to do it.

For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

gratux,
@gratux@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

it allows easy scripting. also for frequently used commands, i can just scroll up in the history, instead if clicking the same buttons over and over

superbirra,

a terminal is the ultimate gui for a lot of things especially w/ ncurses mouse support. You can open N terms and easily compose a dashboard which is exactly tailored to what you’re doing at the moment. A simple oneliner often solves a problem for which a gui simply does not exist / isn’t powerful enough. Terminal is the ultimate gui ftw from the space yay!

lemmyvore,

Tell him you can “talk” directly to the computer that way.

azimir,

One of the other commenter made the analogy of being in a restaurant. With a mouse you can only point and grunt at things to communicate when you want. A terminal let’s you speak out your order and any other requests you might have.

squid_slime, (edited )
@squid_slime@lemmy.world avatar

Can get much more done rather than navigating desktop and gui’s… Also I’m a sucker for tui’s,

Ranger,

Rtorrent-ps,

Nvtop,

Gotop,

Gomuks,

Even greetd tui implementation,

And much more.

bizdelnick,

CLI is conservative, GUI tends to change with each release. I have no time to search where is the menu item I need now or where is the menu itself.

Rikj000,
@Rikj000@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Terminal still has use-cases imo:

  • Some programs only offer CLI, no GUI,
    to use them, the terminal is the only way.
  • Sometimes it’s faster to use CLI instead of GUI, especially when you can use your command history to re-execute.
  • Testing single lines of scripts while writing them.
Sterben,
@Sterben@lemmy.ml avatar

I usually use that to install updates.

stoy,

I am on Windows as my workstation, but my servers run Linux, why should I install X/Wayland and VNC to manage my servers when even the later versions of Windows comes with an ssh client?

When I run linux with a gui, I mainly use the terminal as I sm more used to that rather than relearning a GUI.

Lmaydev,

Yeah I use WSL a huge amount of my work.

Azure for instance is much easier to work with in the console than the website.

Then there’s grep!

BestBouclettes, (edited )

For me it’s because it’s much quicker and reliable for most use cases. Also the commands are roughly the same across many many of my systems (AIX, macos, and Linux distros)

Barbarian,
@Barbarian@sh.itjust.works avatar
bouh,

The terminal is like a direct access to do things on the computer. A GUI is a program someone made to do a task the way he envisioned it to be done. If this task is not exactly what you need, you’re out of luck.

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