Command line or GUI, which do you prefer?

ManofGod

ManofGod

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Well, considering how old Linux is and where it came from, do you prefer the command line or GUI when you use Linux? Me, I do not think it matters one way or the other, just so long as I can get what I need to get done. Sometimes, I have to use the command line but, as long as I can find the appropriate help if I get stuck, I am cool with that.
 
Command-line for most things, but setting up LDAP/Kerberos in authconfig-gtk is nice because of the push-button cert import. Doing that command-line with openssl kinda sucks.

Mostly I use the GUI just to have more term windows open at a time, plus alt+tab is nice to have.
 
I use the command line almost exclusively. I just prefer it, mostly cause I can do things much faster then having to deal with gui. I rarely actually even start X on my daily driver as most things i do on the daily I can get done from rl3. Plus with terminal multiplexing you don't even need a gui to get more shells.

I pretty much only use gui when I want to stream shows, or play the occasional game.., A lot of my web browsing I do from my phone. If I do browse the web on my computer it is usually gui though, but if it is a quick google or something I might still just fire up elinks.
 
For me it is completely task dependent. Some things I prefer to use the command line because it is just way faster, but then other times I prefer to use a GUI. For day to day use (browsing the web, checking email, etc) I use the GUI, but for certain tasks I use the CLI. For instance, I almost always perform package management via the command line. It's faster and gives me far more feedback/useful information, which can really come in handy when something goes wrong. So yeah, long-ish post only to say that it's a mode dependent operation for me.
 
I mostly use Linux for servers and I end up using the CLI for all of it. IMO most of the administrative tasks are easier and since I had an AutoCAD background before I started using Linux there wasn't much of a hurdle to jump over.
That said, if I need to edit large config files (postfix, proftpd, apache2, etc) I generally use FileZilla to edit the file in Notepad++ because the CLI does not lend itself to quick copy paste and file navigation (unless you love key commands).

The only time I use desktop Linux these days is for my USB encrypted portable install that I use when I am not on my own PC or to aid computer repair/backup.
 
Lunar said:
For me it is completely task dependent. Some things I prefer to use the command line because it is just way faster, but then other times I prefer to use a GUI. For day to day use (browsing the web, checking email, etc) I use the GUI, but for certain tasks I use the CLI. For instance, I almost always perform package management via the command line. It's faster and gives me far more feedback/useful information, which can really come in handy when something goes wrong. So yeah, long-ish post only to say that it's a mode dependent operation for me.
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Ditto, it really is mode dependent for me as well.

grim4593 said:
I mostly use Linux for servers and I end up using the CLI for all of it. IMO most of the administrative tasks are easier and since I had an AutoCAD background before I started using Linux there wasn't much of a hurdle to jump over.
That said, if I need to edit large config files (postfix, proftpd, apache2, etc) I generally use FileZilla to edit the file in Notepad++ because the CLI does not lend itself to quick copy paste and file navigation (unless you love key commands).

The only time I use desktop Linux these days is for my USB encrypted portable install that I use when I am not on my own PC or to aid computer repair/backup.
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Doing the administrative tasks on a server network is no easy task, even for someone who knows what he or she is doing such as yourself. The CLI usage makes complete sense with what you are doing, that is for sure.
 
Terminal for installing software via apt, running network specific diagnostic commands or SSH, GUI for everything else.
 
Honestly hard to say.
I use Yakuake, so that I have a Quake style console under F4 or "~".
It's pretty random, because sometimes it's just faster to tap the "~" and type in updatedb or locate something
However I follow one rule - once I use a GUI program to edit configuration for something, like Samba, I try to avoid editing by hand later on so that any changes are easily interpreted by the GUI part.
On servers, it's CLI only because I try to get the graphics card/Desktop environment out of the mix.
 
GUI every second of every day. I will never insist on there not being a way to do the same task using command line just as I would hope command line folks wouldn't want there to not be a GUI way to do things. Options are good things not bad.
 
Terminal 50% of the time. I support more then one distro and for a lot of things its just easier to get in and touch actual conf files ect. Command line tools like imagemagik are far more efficient then any GUI tool I have used. Of course Linux has come a long way and for a lot of stuff there are solid simple GUI tools that work quite well.

I have nothing against GUI tools... for config type tools I do in general prefer to know exactly what is going on as often as possible. In my experience nothing causes more issues then some GUI configuration tool that is changing stuff I'm not aware of causing me grief down the road.
 
I like having the GUI option, just so it's easier to copy-paste between terminal windows. There are a lot of things that are just easier to vizualize as well (partition maps, large file lists, firewalls, etc).

But I haven't had a GUI installed in my linux system for years now, so I've kind of gotten used to it. When I feel I need a GUI, I'm usually SSHed in from a remote computer on a GUI anyway.
 
Command line.

I don't typically use Linux on a workstation at the moment, so all my Linux systems don't even have X installed. So I guess technically, it's GUI from Mac OS or Windows with OpenSSH connections to whatever Linux systems I need.
 
I use FreeBSD, not linux, so it's really a different beast than a typical linux distro. For configuring the system, you pretty much have to use command line, but it's mostly well documented and rather straightforward. My only constant use is as a server, so no need for X or any other GUI stuff. When I do work with it as desktop, I use GUI for the programs (handbrake, VLC, etc.).

I'd really like to learn more CLI for Windows, as there is some pretty cool stuff you can do in Power Shell that isn't easily or at all available through GUI. At the level of anyone posting in [H], some familiarity with CLI and willingness to use should be required!
 
BulletDust said:
CLI is Windows, so I assume you're talking about Windows?
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Um, the term CLI is not specific to Windows. Note the multitude of applications in Linux repositories that directly reference cli such as transmission-cli
 
KarsusTG said:
um?!?!

CLI = Command Line Interface...
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I guess it's what you're used to. Under Linux I tend to call it a terminal.

Having said that, if you're implying that the use of terminal is a necessity under Linux, than OSX/macOS must also be a fail. Because get out of that GUI based comfort zone and into the nitty gritty of the OS and the use of terminal under OSX/macOS is as necessary as it is under Linux. I love it because the commands are literally identical between operating systems.

In other words, the use of Linux without ever touching the terminal is very much a possibility under modern distro's.
 
I love using the fish shell with CLI (especially pacaur) for most things on Manjaro. GUI works wells if there's 1000 options to work through in a config file.
 
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