Thread 107143678

Why are people so deathly afraid of a command line? In Linux especially, the command line is often the quickest way to do tasks that would take unnecessarily long with a GUI. Take something as rudimentary as installing a web browser:

In windows
>Open up web browser
>Open Google
>Look up "firefox"
>Navigate the website
>Download a file
>Open the file
>Uncheck the boxes of shit you don't need
>Install
>Delete the installer

In Linux
>Open terminal
>sudo apt update
>sudo apt install firefox
>type "y"
>Done

And yet, the more "user friendly" distros give a retarded software center which adds more steps and extends a simple process.

This isn't even mentioning how useful the terminal can be for other purposes. It's able to do plenty of highly advanced calculations + able to automate very repetitive series of calculations, yet subhumans will use a fucking calculator app instead which is infinitely more cumbersome

You have to actually learn the commands and niggers are black

People don't even know what a command line is, never mind being "deathly afraid" of one

>>107143678 (OP)
You can do both of those in either operating system. You're describing normie versus autist.
And quickest isn't necessarily best. Especially if you need to go to the website to read about the software and whether it meets your needs in the first place.

or even easier
>open software app
>search firefox
>click install

>>107143678 (OP)
tbqh famm
pic related

Command line is useful for setting up servers and doing software development. In everyday use I don't really want to see it

>>107143678 (OP)
Windows has winget and Linux has deb/rpm; why are you trying to make an OS flamewar out of this? The "Windows" method (aka normal people method) will always be more popular because it doesn't require an initiation.

>>107143678 (OP)
Emacs literally gives you the best of both worlds

>>107143678 (OP)
Firefox recommends adding their apt repository. You dont know if the distro's repo is maintained or if the software only provides a binary/tarball and still need to look it up online for the preferred method

>>107143678 (OP)
>Why are people so deathly afraid
Choices mean responsibility. It's why people love television and being slaves in general and only get angry when you point it out.

>>107143678 (OP)
>sudo apt install yt-dlp
>try to use it
>mfw its outdated
>try yt-dlp -U
>mfw you can't update yt-dlp if it's installed from a repo
>download yt-dlp from some sketchy github repo
>success.jpg
>sudo apt install mpv
>yt-dlp gets downgraded
mfw

>>107143678 (OP)
Windows, pre 10 at least, had 3 ways to do 1 thing
That was the philosophy.
Command line, GUI and more GUI
That's actually what I hate about Linux.
The only way to do something, is command line.
Which means searching up the command, make sure the tools are installed, and hope that the tool you used is maintained.
I really wish SteamOS will become a thing so everything can be done through gui, without a need to resort to command line.
All will be required is to read.

>>107145034
>I really wish SteamOS will become a thing so everything can be done through gui
What does Steam have to do with this? If it has a GUI for everything you want then congrats? Just install steam. If it doesn't then why would it being popular change anything?

it could very well be some kind of extension of the "visualize an apple" phenomenon, where typed out commands are perceived to have far less "action" than clicking some buttons
maybe TUIs should be more widespread, since that's what got me wanting to live in terminal

>>107145055
Because SteamOS will be designed for normies.
It means GUI has to be top priority.
Every other DE is always incomplete or missing something.
Take task manager for example. No such thing on most DE, must kill process through cmd if it hangs.
Cpu monitor is cmd only, not part of Task Manager as well.
Do any of you actually use Linux?
I had to install a bunch of GUI tools on top just to have somewhat functional Linux os

>>107143678 (OP)
>why do people take the easy no-brainer path that passively guides them towards their target in small, trivial steps with feedback that reassures them they're doing ok even if they have no idea what they're doing
A great mystery indeed.

>>107143678 (OP)
would you rather read and type shit or click and drag?
reading and typing is harder
t. nig

>>107143678 (OP)
Because it looks like hacking and hacking is a crime

>>107143678 (OP)
>have group of friends
>bimbo bitch gets a steam deck
>she goes from breaking her phone every 2 seconds to flying through the terminal so she can make kde look more "girlypop"
my answer is a lack of exposure to command line

>>107145309
The linux path is far more of a nobrainer.
>I want to install software
>I tell the computer to install a software
>It installs the software

Windows is only a "nobrainer" to you because you are used to it

>>107143678 (OP)
Not everyone is capable of using the command line

>>107145969
The problem is how would you know about the software? Installing it through terminal is pretty narrow use case when you need to populate brand new machine with your old apps.

>>107146357
You can check the repositories quite easily

>>107146305
They should be

>>107145525
ricing is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural

a command line is like a black box, it doesn't show you what you can use it for, so it's not immediately obvious how it can be useful
i started on DOS, so i never had the chance to be put off by it, like, it was unavoidable, that was the only interface a DOS machine had, so if you wanted to use it, you needed to learn to use a command line. if you started on macos or windows 95+ where the command line was practically always optional, it might just be seen as "the old way" to use a computer rather than something that is still useful today.

>>107145234
that image gave me a seizure
not even joking

>>107150689
>>107143678 (OP)
the main thing aside from laziness and lack of motivation to learn anything new, is people are afraid of breaking their pc and then being fucked without a pc and a nice repair bill.

>>107150752
sorry, OFCOM
I just pulled the first "Nano editor" screenshot off jewgle

>>107143678 (OP)
Story Time!
>System admin at small company
>Boss changes everyone over to linux to save money
>Everyone complains and they're angry at me
>"I don't know how to use this!"
>"I can't read my documents!"
>"My emails are gone!"
>sigh.jpeg
>Install a Windows XP theme on everyones computer
>Change the Open Office icons to MS Office ones
>"Wow, thanks for switching us back!"
>"This Windows update feels faster!"
The amount of change the average normie can handle is between none and a very slight amount. As soon as someone is set in there ways it feels impossible to change old habbits.

>>107143678 (OP)
With keyboard centric workflow you have to memorize commands and shortcuts. Gui based is more accessible

>>107143678 (OP)
Ok now try installing something that's not already in the official repo

It's simply ducking embarrassing linuxfags still TYPE THINGS INTO THEIR COMPUTERS LIKE ITS 1980

like holy shit even apple didn't get rid of this crap though most people don't ever see it. Computers shouldn't have even the option of the command line in 2025

>>107143678 (OP)
You just have to know how a terminal works. With GUI's you can infer the usage by looking at it, with you cannot.

In your example the user would have to understand what sudo and apt are, what the usual syntax for commands is (i.e. [tool] [...args]) to get that you pass apt to sudo and update/install to apt, basic shit like this. GUI's win against RTFM by being contextually discoverable.

>>107150904
A shell is nice because it's so easy to implement UI for it. Mucking with GUI's for each and all applications isn't feasible at the moment with how much boilerplate and fiddling they require. Now if there was some sort of automatic GUI generation which made sense, that'd be cool.

>>107143678 (OP)
because they're used to desktop point and click snca, i believe typing on the terminal is far more easier as it only involves the keyboard

JAY
LOOGIE
IRWIN

>>107150904
As a wise man once said
>The difference between a white man and a nigger is "do you like the command line?" "No"? You're a fucking nigger, fuck you

>>107150956
Again, you are saying this because you are now used to GUIs. When it comes down to it, there is no difference in the learning curve between a guy who never used a computer learning windows' ui vs learning a shell. A shell might even be easier to learn overall

>>107150892
No more memorization than with the average GUI which uses antiquated analogies for it's icons which only make sense to those who have been using it for years and mostly relies on knowledge of past expierence with using it

I sincerely am starting to wonder if windows users are just autistic and cannot imagine someone using it without any prior context of what windows was and what it does

>>107151526
no, that's wrong.

>>107151541
No, that's incorrect.

>>107151546
>No argument
I accept your concession

>>107143678 (OP)
I made this same thread last week with this image, glad I could inspire!

>>107151526
A terminal hides its options. GUI shows the possible options. If a terminal when opened told the user that "write 'help' to see what you can do" to provide an entrypoint, then your point would be more credible. Now you just get a prompt that doesn't have any built-in entry to guidance.

usecase for user friendly software?

>>107143678 (OP)
>in Linux
>Open terminal
>sudo apt update
>apt not found
>oh right this is Manjaro
>Google how to install on Manjaro
>it's pacman
>Sudo pacman get firefox
>get not a valid argument
>Google again
>Sudo pacman syu firefox -c
>next time you need anyting
>shit what was it again? sue? sUi? SuY -s?
>google it again


The problem with command line is that you need to read a book before you can start using it, and you need to keep it all in mind.
Every package has different arguments, you just don't know what options are available to you and then you might forget a word or something.

GUI experience is
>open your software
>look around
>see every available option presented as a tick box
>Ah yes I would like to install it to my C disk with additional features.
>click the tick boxes
>select your desired disk (Displayed as C and not as sda)
>click install
>don't need to read the entire manual before you start.


It's the most obvious fucking thing.

>>107151596
>oh but there's help
Sometimes there's help. Sometimes there's h. sometimes there isn't. and sometimes it looks like
>Help
>--h --c --C --v --V...... etc

Lets get real. Every time you need to use somethign for the first time you google a thread on stack overflow. And it takes more than once for you to memorize.

>>107151541
>GUI which uses antiquated analogies for it's icons which only make sense to those who have been using it for years and mostly relies on knowledge of past expierence with using it
All you need to understand is what a pointer is, and that by using it to click on stuff things happen. From that point on you can find out what you can do by exploration.

>>107151562
Exactly, a terminal doesn't overwhelm the user. A user can use only the options he so pleases.

>>107151652
How does the user know what he can do?

>>107151656
Read the manual, retard.

>>107151657
How does the user read the manual?

Even to use man the user must know which man to read. How does the user find which man they require?

>>107151663
>>107151673
lmao brainlets

>>107151596
>>107151621
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Man_page
Every single package you install will have a manual just use the man command if you are confused, you shouldn't need to google anything. Having to learn something to use something isn't a bad thing

>>107143678 (OP)
>the command line is often the quickest way to do tasks that would take unnecessarily long
>>107151657
>Read the manual, retard.

See you just defeated the OP's argument.
OP was trying to insinuate that using the GUI was slower because of having to click and navigate. Well not really if you include the time to read the manual into the equation.
That's IF there's a manual and IF it's sufficiently detailed for the new user to understand.

>>107151652
>A user can use only the options he so pleases.
>the options: -h, -H, -c, -C, -v, -V, -t, -T...
Thank you terminal, very cool

>>107151683
The user lacks foreknowledge. How does user attain it? GUI has levers to pull which reveal more levers, while terminal is an orb only initiates can ponder.

>>107151709
>the man command
Thank you, I didn't know there was the man command, nothing in the terminal suggested it even exists or how to look for it. Not meming, it's exactly as this guy says
>>107151663
>How does the user read the manual?

First of all the user needs to know that the manual even exists, then he needs to know where to look for it.

>>107143678 (OP)
i did this recently on linux mint and it kept downloading an outdated version of firefox that certain frontend web applications wouldn't work on.
now you will have to acknowledge the fact that it isn't as simple as `sudo apt update`.

>>107143678 (OP)
Thinking and learning are barriers standing in the way of consuming content.

>>107151762
>he didn't know to do this to install up-to-date FF by using their repo
Skill issue, obviously. This is the official guide on Firefox's site by the way, gotta love how cool they are with the bash spells.

>>107151709
>Every single package you install will have a manual just use the man command if you are confused
Except when that's not the case... and even if you get a man page it's often difficult to read, lacks information and has no useful examples. Sometimes the man page even directs you to an online manual kek.

>>107151806
well there's the answer. people don't want to have to look at, and interpret a page of bash magic to download and install a browser. the alternative method is faster and easier.

>>107143678 (OP)
>come up with random ass non existent scenario or problem to get mad at
why are retards obsessed with doing that,

>>107151806
The IT nerdsare so out of touch they forget that other jobs even exists
>why don't the users just learn to script it's so easy
Because the users are busy learning other shit, Solidworks or whatever. The world isn't all programmers and coders. Other people have heads occupied with other things and the software nerds can't wrap their heads around it.
A mechanical engineer doesn't have the time or mental capacity to also learn bash on top of everythig he already has to do. It only looks easy to you because its the only thing you do.

>>107151819
To be fair they also provide these bit lower on the same page, but the expectation here is that you'd know what they are something meant for you. Flatpak? Snap? Sounds kinda specialized to me. Not to mention they have their own update procedures you'd have to know.

Why do freetard techvegans never shut the fuck up?

>>107143678 (OP)
Literal kids use command lines just fine.

>>107152005
Making fun of you is too enjoyable

>>107151885
I've been doing tech shit as a hobby, in education, and as a job over the past decade. This included installing, using, and trying a few different distros, and i still have no idea what any of that shit is.
linux is free if you don't value your time.

>>107152165
The only laughter is people laughing at feral techvegans like you. Even soccer moms know about and make fun of you incel losers.

>>107151627
>All you need to understand is what a pointer is
I don't, and I've had a number of autismos "explain" it to me to the point they make blockchain autismos sound lucid and sane.

You still need to know what the pointer is pointing to, which is some unknown fragment of some unknown something inside a black box that tells you to go fuck yourself when you try to ask it for help. In the last three decades I've forgotten more command line shit across a dozen platforms than you've ever seen. Something like a quarter million commands and various switches for them and I just can't fucks to give anymore. It's all alphanumeric soup now and I can't remember what works on which platform anymore. And I've stopped caring.

If you don't know what you're looking for, you lack the vocabulary to know how to ask for it. Or even to try to ask for it, since you don't even know that it might exist.

> tl;dr - cli is the Eternal Black Box
I don't fear it; I want cli to go fuck itself to death.

>>107152303
>N-No u
Lmao. Completely proved my point

>>107152312
By pointer I meant this handy GUI primitive in case it wasn't clear.

>>107152005
remember how ballmer was criticized for calling them commies?
now we have unironic rust communist trannies. kind of funny that if he said that today, it would feel a lot more acceptable.

>>107151806
That is completely fucking insane. Nothing in that picrel makes sense, and nothing is explained. It's all copy/pasta and pray It Just Werx. Anything goes wrong and you've fucked your system with no help to unfuck or try again to do it right. The poster child of why CLI is useless and dead tech.

>>107144963
>download yt-dlp from some sketchy github repo
just use the official repo

>>107152334
Why did (You) bother posting? There is zero information that can be used by anybody in that post, just your arrogance and superiority complex because (You) have t3h Sekrit Informations.

Now, explain how blockchain works.

>>107152318
The real world laughs at you incel losers, while only you are laughing in your own head thinking people are laughing with you rather than at you.

>>107152449
You don't have to prove you're mad, we know dude.

>>107143678 (OP)
except you don't know if the package name is firefox
and in "google" you can just type "web browser" and still find what you want
I'm revoking your /g/ card

>>107143678 (OP)
Windows has package managers. Winget (Microsoft / GitHub), Chocolatey (entirely community driven), Scoop, ninite(?).
GUI is a must for normalfags.
Also unless you use stock settings, you'll need more than just Sudo apt install firefox.

>>107143678 (OP)
Because I have shit memory and can't remember all the commands. Also
>>Open terminal
>>sudo apt update
>>sudo apt install firefox
>>type "y"

What if I am browsing for software and I come across something I want to use? Surely using the command line means that I have to know exactly what I want, that's not always the case. GUI is better for looking around. Also, how do I know where something is coming from? If I download an exe or zip from a website, I can see the URL that I'm downloading from, and I have some barriers to fuckery like built in malware detection in the browser as another layer of protection. It seems that if I am using the command line, I just have to pray that whatever I'm installing is coming from a legitimate source.

>>107145034
Linux will usually have a GUI tool (whether that's a good GUI tool is as variable as Windows, unless there is only an official Windows GUI tool, in which case the Linux GUI tool is better), simply because anyone can write programs and someone will want a GUI tool unless the program is both totally niche and totally trivial.
>SteamOS
This is just Arch with some defaults that they assume that most users won't change. Valve will almost never go through the work to make something if they can avoid it.
>>107151721
>OP was trying to insinuate that using the GUI was slower because of having to click and navigate. Well not really if you include the time to read the manual into the equation.
You need to read a manual once, zero times if you're just copying and pasting from a guide. If you need to type out a command you've used before, then you can just find that command or use a script.
You need to navigate through a GUI every single time.
>>107153872
>Microsoft has Linux utility
>It's a hodgepodge of things that aren't available by default or cobbled together from Linux emulation and unmaintained sourceforge projects from the 2000s and 2010s

>>107143678 (OP)
It has a steeper learning curve than GUI shit, but when you're familiar with the Linux command line, it becomes more of an asset than a liability. Anything you can do with the command line can be automated with crontab, services etc. It's not so easy to automate things which require a GUI, at least without installing more third party pajeetware.

>>107154202
If you install from a command line, it means the software is coming from one of the built in repos for your distribution, which means you realistically have nothing to worry about, especially if you're using one of the major distros with large organizational backing behind them.

>>107154202
Many modern Linux distros come with a software browser thing built right into the OS.

>>107143678 (OP)
I'm obsessed with doing everything in the terminal. Everything that's not in the terminal is in some shit format, some dumb UI, some locked-in BS, TFA, login to remove the paywall shit. Fuck that. I'm writing software to bring it all home: the terminal, where I can manage it using CLI because fuck you.
My dream OS is the console, Linux or BSD I'm open to anything. But we're early days yet.

>>107144765
Nice.

>>107154202
> Surely using the command line means that I have to know exactly what I want
You can search your repository
> apt-cache search game
> apt-cache search ^game < starts with game
Get more info on a particular package
> apt info nethack

> How do I know where something is coming from? It seems that if I am using the command line, I just have to pray that whatever I'm installing is coming from a legitimate source.
If it's coming from a repository, your OS is handling all that back end stuff. You don't have to think about it and it's not a mystery or a crap shoot. You can see the sites it's hitting and for what.
Notwithstanding fun stuff like the xz supply chain malware attack, Linux doesn't need malware or virus scanners. In the 7 years I've been using Linux full time, I installed one once. It found a virus: in a Windows executable.
Grabbing software from random websites is less secure because you never know if you've been phished a fake site. Repositories are always setup by the OS itself, so you can trust them. Any other repositories you add, you add manually under instruction of a site you trust. The repositories are regular HTTP/s connections, so they are as secure as a web connection, but with no browser complexity or vulnerabilities.

> What if I'm browsing [the web] and find something I want to use?
Figure out the name of the program, then
> 1. Check apt
> > Is it available?
> > > $ apt-cache search <software>
> > Is the version up to date?
> > > $ apt info <software>
> > If so, install it.
> > If not, find another method.
> 2. Check github or another trusted repository.
> > Is it available as a pre-compiled binary?
> > > Download it.
> > Can I compile source in that language?
> > > Compile it.
> > Can I install the various tooling and libraries required to compile it?
> > > Do the everloving needful and compile it
> 3. Visit the official page of the software and see what I find. <- Presently your only solution.

>>107144319
This

>>107150864
this is why linux will never win. people like what's familiar to them, and linux nerds are ideologically against looking and acting like windows.

>>107151508
The CIA really does have a docile herd of nigger cattle. Who has time to read when you're too busy eating and shitting and eating some more

>>107155666
It still amazes me that on a fucking tech board most people here don't actually understand jack shit fuck all about technology. I don't even know why they come here, I can't imagine they understand anything they're reading

>>107143678 (OP)
>Why are people so deathly afraid of a command line?

Not everyone is a super hacker genius sir

>>107144223
I tend to like graphical package managers for this reason, even if I get called a retard for using them. It's still handy to know the commands if you want to install multiple packages at once, but of course you'd still need to know the exact names of all of them. Derp.

>>107150752
>seizures can be caused by still images
Fascinating.

>>107152005
you have a frozen supermarket burger while i have the whole cow

>>107159912
with no ability or know how to process and store the meat from the animal

>>107159927
it's ok anon, you don't need to understand the analogy, that's my point.

>>107145291
>install a new distro
>open terminal
>install the exact same programs
>fuck with the features in the distro
>get bored
>argue on /g/
>install a new distro

>>107143678 (OP)
Option 1
>use one hand

Option 2
>use two hand


Tell me again which is "easier", retard

>>107161108
Spoken like a true small-peepee-fag

>107147741
>15:22:15
>107149137
>18:24:17
>107150689
>22:54:20
>107153872
>07:56:31
>>107155549
>11:31:58
>>107157522
>15:34:12
>>107158511
>17:44:20
>>107159912
>21:39:02
>>107161108
>01:20:50
>incel virgin samefags himself every hour to save his dead troll thread from page 10
>again
how shocking and unexpected

why havent you killed yourself yet loser?
do something useful for your mom and fertilize her compost pile
everyone wishes you were dead, especially your mom
how embarrassing it must be for her to have to explain to her friends all the time that her son is still a fat 50 year old incel NEET loser eating all her food and stinking up her basement spending every waking minute of his incel life "owning M$/loonix"
there is no bigger no-life loser on this entire shithole of a site than you, and that's saying a lot
just end your worthless life already, the world will be a better place with you dead

>>107143678 (OP)
>Why is the command line feared by normies

because autism presents in a small minority of the general population, rather than the majority.

I know people who spent a portion of their working life manually coding assembly on punch cards, and can barely troubleshoot a printer.

You are, and always will be the minority, as sad as that is.

>>107161488
Man they really let you out just to get away from you huh

>>107162230
haha, i'm always one (just one) of the quotes in his posts. funny every time

>>107145291
>Take task manager for example.
btop.
Also why do you think the DE is supposed to provide that?
>I had to install a bunch of GUI tools on top just to have somewhat functional Linux os
Do you have no idea what a Linux OS is? It's not some single project, it's a collection of a thousand odd different things. That's you have to have distros to have a functioning OS. That's literally *the entire point* of a distro is to collect those "bunch of GUI tools" to give you a functioning OS.

>>107154202
>What if I am browsing for software and I come across something I want to use? Surely using the command line means that I have to know exactly what I want
>Doesn't know about tab
>Doesn't know about c-r
ngmi

>>107162384
anyone who has used linux long enough can tell you there's two ways to define a linux os.
0. it uses linux
1. it depends on what you mean by "linux os"

>>107143742
fpbp

>>107143678 (OP)
you have to google the exact name of the package you're trying to install, so this is cope. also using a gui for basic shit like copying and deleting files is faster

>>107143678 (OP)
>in windows
general intelligence
agency
>in loonix
memorization

>>107155666
Mint-L my beloved...

>>107161488

>how shocking and unexpected
>
>why havent you killed yourself yet loser?
>do something useful for your mom and fertilize her compost pile
>everyone wishes you were dead, especially your mom
>how embarrassing it must be for her to have to explain to her friends all the time that her son is still a fat 50 year old incel NEET loser eating all her food and stinking up her basement spending every waking minute of his incel life "owning M$/loonix"
>there is no bigger no-life loser on this entire shithole of a site than you, and that's saying a lot
>just end your worthless life already, the world will be a better place with you dead