Common command line uses for GUI apps

[Jza]

I have seen some apps becoming very powerful on what people used to do on the command line.

One example is samba, first it was eedit the smb.conf, then it was the SWAT a web app for samba. Now desktop apps like smb4k are taking over.

I wonder if people should bother with learning the command line way and actually how more dificult is finding that once the GUI take over the process of networking.

[Tsuroerusu]

If people don't want to learn the commandline then I'm fine about it, the truth is that Linux has gotten so easy to use that you don't need the commandline that much anymore. Of course I'm speaking from my experiences with SUSE and Mandriva.

[Judland]

I've been using computers since the Vic20 / XT days. I personally feel that, even though GUI are convenient and do make things easier sometimes, you're always better off if you know the commands behind how they work.

To me, it's like owning a car. I don't know how to rebuild an engine, but at least I know enough to check fluid levels and common connections and such when experiencing problems... not to just rely on what my dashboard lights tell me.

That's another important reason why I don't like Microsoft anymore. They try to bury things so you can't easily do things manually anymore. Win 3.1 was great, 'cause DOS was just a keyboard click away.

But that's just me.

[Tsuroerusu]

I've been using computers since the Vic20 / XT days. I personally feel that, even though GUI are convenient and do make things easier sometimes, you're always better off if you know the commands behind how they work.

To me, it's like owning a car. I don't know how to rebuild an engine, but at least I know enough to check fluid levels and common connections and such when experiencing problems... not to just rely on what my dashboard lights tell me.

You can of course ask your daddy to learn something about cars if he buys one, but you can't ask him to learn something decent about computers if he buys one, that's just how the world is today.

You just can't get non-techie people who've been using Windows everyday for 8 years to learn commands, they're used to having a GUI, so give them KDE and they'll be happy!

[Jza]

One of the issues is that most guis are 'proprietary', for example, mandriva will have the mandriva control center that will have a mounting gui for samba/nfs etc. Suse will have yast, KDE has another one, and Gnome has none until recently with gnome-vfs guis.

There used to be a very powerful and geeky interface under linuxconf, and then some other independent specialized guis will come out of the blue. Anotheer example with this is firewalling, you have independent guis such as guarddog while you have dedicated guis like smoothwall, iptables-gui and also proprietary firewall setups under yast, kde, etc.

PS: Proprietary meaning as it only ships on that special distro, or enviroment.

[Tsuroerusu]

One of the issues is that most guis are 'proprietary', for example, mandriva will have the mandriva control center that will have a mounting gui for samba/nfs etc. Suse will have yast, KDE has another one, and Gnome has none until recently with gnome-vfs guis.

There used to be a very powerful and geeky interface under linuxconf, and then some other independent specialized guis will come out of the blue. Anotheer example with this is firewalling, you have independent guis such as guarddog while you have dedicated guis like smoothwall, iptables-gui and also proprietary firewall setups under yast, kde, etc.

PS: Proprietary meaning as it only ships on that special distro, or enviroment.

LOL, Novell has been so kind to GPL YaST, and Mandriva's MCC has always been free software, so it's not their fault, if others distros wanna use YaST they can go ahead and use it, and I think both distros would like that.

The word proprietary is really the worst word you could use for this example man, YaST is not proprietary, if you wanna write your own module for it, go ahead and do it, if you wanna change a module, go ahead and do it!

Personally I love YaST, I think it's a million times better than what Linspire offers and claims to be the eaisiest on the planet.

[CptnObvious999]

There are somethings where I think CLI programs are better and some not. For example using a GUI for image editing like in GIMP makes it 1000+ times easier but CLI programs are more portable and are extremely powerfull since you can string them together with bash. They each have a purpose and I think Linux has a healthy balance of both.

[Tsuroerusu]

There are somethings where I think CLI programs are better and some not. For example using a GUI for image editing like in GIMP makes it 1000+ times easier but CLI programs are more portable and are extremely powerfull since you can string them together with bash. They each have a purpose and I think Linux has a healthy balance of both.

Yeah but if people don't wanna be a geek and learn the commandprompt then they shouldn't have to, yeah I agree it sometimes is faster and more efficient to use apt-get instead of Synaptic, but you just can't ask new Linux users to learn that stuff unless they want to, and most don't.

[CptnObvious999]

There are somethings where I think CLI programs are better and some not. For example using a GUI for image editing like in GIMP makes it 1000+ times easier but CLI programs are more portable and are extremely powerfull since you can string them together with bash. They each have a purpose and I think Linux has a healthy balance of both.

Yeah but if people don't wanna be a geek and learn the commandprompt then they shouldn't have to, yeah I agree it sometimes is faster and more efficient to use apt-get instead of Synaptic, but you just can't ask new Linux users to learn that stuff unless they want to, and most don't.

I know noobies find GUIs easier however Im glad Linux never got rid of the command line for power users like me. CLI is awesome for automaticing stuff and running scripts that handle things the are repeditive like making backups. I was able to make my computer turn on and emerge --sync then update my system an hour before I can home from school. Thats something GUI's can't do unless you did all that from scratch

[Tsuroerusu]

I know noobies find GUIs easier however Im glad Linux never got rid of the command line for power users like me. CLI is awesome for automaticing stuff and running scripts that handle things the are repeditive like making backups. I was able to make my computer turn on and emerge --sync then update my system an hour before I can home from school. Thats something GUI's can't do unless you did all that from scratch

Now I agree with that, one of the main reasons why geeks love UNIX-like OSes is it has very very good shell scripting, you can make these operating systems do ANYTHING!

I like bash scripting too, when I used Mandrake I wrote a little script that would go out and fetch the sourcecode for GNU nano, extract it, install it and clean up afterwards, because it didn't install it off the CDs.
Also for creating a highly secure server, I think it's best to configure it through the commandline, because having less software on the system makes for less risks for security holes, for example, you never know if X ever has a security problem. Distros like SUSE and Red Hat are really easy to set up through the commandline, ntsysv is a nice utility in Red Hat for disabling and enabling services, and under SUSE you have the ncurses version of YaST!

[Judland]

You can of course ask your daddy to learn something about cars if he buys one, but you can't ask him to learn something decent about computers if he buys one, that's just how the world is today.

You just can get non-techie people who've been using Windows everyday for 8 years to learn commands, they're used to having a GUI, so give them KDE and they'll be happy!

I disagree with this entire statement.

To quote Linus Torvalds, "If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it."

Linux is something different... it's something better. To make Linux "dumb" just to get it in the mainstream is a foolish course of action. In my opinion.

[Tsuroerusu]

I disagree with this entire statement.

To quote Linus Torvalds, "If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it."

Linux is something different... it's something better. To make Linux "dumb" just to get it in the mainstream is a foolish course of action. In my opinion.

I didn't say you have to dumb the thing down like Apple and GNOME does, but try to teach my mum how to connect to wireless access point through the commandline, Pat mentioned on his blog that he needed to jump to the commandline to get wireless working on Kubuntu, that's not anything my mum could figure out. I don't assume the users a idiots but some people don't have the interest in learning about how a computer working, one of my mum's hobbies is collecting post stamps, not computers, she just wanna use a computer not know how it works. To us who know about computers and actually have an interest in learning about it, it sounds ridiculous that newbiews can't spend just two hours learning some basic commands if they need them, but let me assure you, if you try to make people, who don't want to, learn commands they'll jump right back to Windows and just accept all the spyware and virus nonsense and just say "That Linux is too hard to use, I'll just live with these Windows issues".

[Gomer_X]

You can of course ask your daddy to learn something about cars if he buys one, but you can't ask him to learn something decent about computers if he buys one, that's just how the world is today.

You just can't get non-techie people who've been using Windows everyday for 8 years to learn commands, they're used to having a GUI, so give them KDE and they'll be happy!

I don't think this is necessarily a newbie or non-techie issue. Personally I just want to get things done. I use Fedora because I'm OK with letting someone else decide what compiler flags to use when compiling packages, which libraries to use, etc. If I wanted to control all that I'd use Slackware or Gentoo. To me, as long as it works, I don't care.

I use the command line a lot, though, because it does what I want. There is no GUI text editor in the world that is more powerful than Vim. If I could get the functionality in a GUI app, I'd do it. The same with mutt as a mail reader. It has far greater functionality than Evolution or Thunderbird, and can do anything I want.

If people want the extra functionality, they'll learn a more complex program to get it, and most of the time that's a console app. It's just a question of how much control you want.

[Judland]

if you try to make people, who don't want to, learn commands they'll jump right back to Windows and just accept all the spyware and virus nonsense and just say "That Linux is too hard to use, I'll just live with these Windows issues".

I agree with you on this point, completely. And if it means losing these kind of users in order to keep Linux from becoming MS-Windows... I'm perfectly happy with that.

We (the Linux community) have got to start drawing some lines in the sand. In my opinion anyway. Instead of making thing so easy that any idiot can use a computer, we should take the time to educate people as to the benefits of education... if you catch my drift.

Don't just hand them a fish... teach them how to fish. They'll be better off in the end.

[Tsuroerusu]

I agree with you on this point, completely. And if it means losing these kind of users in order to keep Linux from becoming MS-Windows... I'm perfectly happy with that.

We (the Linux community) have got to start drawing some lines in the sand. In my opinion anyway. Instead of making thing so easy that any idiot can use a computer, we should take the time to educate people as to the benefits of education... if you catch my drift.

Don't just hand them a fish... teach them how to fish. They'll be better off in the end.

Well, good luck getting more market share, with that attitude Linux will never come near the share of Windows, and Apple will whip our asses, and then we'll have even more DRM crap, among even more incompatible codecs because Apple and Microsoft both like fucking DRM and incompatible codecs crap.

Dude, Linux will never be like Windows come on, what are you BSing about? The great thing about Linux, FreeBSD or any open source operating system is that you can make it work like you want it to, there'll always be Slackware, there'll always be Debian, there'll always be NetBSD, there'll always be Fluxbox, WindowMaker, Enlightenment, XFCE.... even if KDE or GNOME because a super dumb Apple-like GUI, then you can just use one of the smaller window managers or desktop environments.

I don't wanna piss on the inexperienced computer users who just wanna use the thing, because I want them to use Linux! I want to see a better ecosystem, for example it shouldn't be illegal to give your neighbor a copy of a program you like or that he could learn something from.

The only thing I think we need to do is just spread the word about Linux some more, look, if the big corporations like Dell and HP (HP has actually sold laptops with SUSE Linux 9.1 preinstalled in the fast) won't promote Linux then we can just do it ourselves. Also, when Microsoft ends support for Vista, there just will be those computer users who don't wanna buy a new machine to be able to run Vista or don't even wanna pay for Vista because they feel what they have right now is good enough for them, well you just give 'em Linux and they'll be happy.

Also, something I find ridiculous is all the analysts saying "Linux is not ready for the desktop", this is just plain ridiculous because, Linux IS for the desktop, the only only thing that needs to be done is a little polish on a few sharp edges to allow for massive adoption of it, it's not that it poses that much technical difficulty, for example I think SUSE needs to work on a better wireless configuration system for YaST, they should look at what Mandriva has done, their wireless configuration options is great.
Also, we need more clarification on which wireless cards work 100% perfect, and hardware in general, for example what scanners and printers work, so we don't have end users buying hardware that don't work.
There are those few sharp edges, but we just need to get some polishing compound and get that fixed.