How do people use terminal for everything, especially external actions?

[Elarion]

I understand being able to memorize the list of commands for things in Bash like file manipulation and updating/upgrading the os and existing software packages. I even get it for altering system settings, since turning all of that into GUI stuff would end up turning it into another Windows, where there's 90 different menus. Yes, you can eventually find stuff, but it's very bloaty and clunky.

 

What I don't get though, is why it's so common to use it to install software, desktop environments, etc. There's no way to figure out exactly what to type unless you look it up. You have to look stuff up so often to use the terminal because everything has its own addresses or terminology. There are definitely patterns, but nowhere near enough to reliably use the terminal to install everything. But I've stumbled across many posts asking about installing certain things (usually desktop environments or other modifications to the OS) where one person tells them that it's possible to find those things in the software center, and then a TON of people come in and just dump all over that person for suggesting that, saying they need to use the command line, it's the proper way, etc. But how are those people doing anything without living in a constant state of Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Elarion said:

There's no way to figure out exactly what to type unless you look it up.

That's not true, most command line programs have built in manuals and help commands and package managers in particular almost always have search functions that allow you to find the names of the packages you want. Add some experience and you rarely have to look anything up. It's not beginner friendly but for an experienced user it's not an issue. That's not to say that the command line is always ideal, I don't know anyone who exclusively uses the terminal even if you technically could; it's just very efficient for some uses.

6 minutes ago, Elarion said:

But I've stumbled across many posts asking about installing certain things (usually desktop environments or other modifications to the OS) where one person tells them that it's possible to find those things in the software center, and then a TON of people come in and just dump all over that person for suggesting that, saying they need to use the command line, it's the proper way, etc.

I mean... I guess those people are just assholes? If installing through the software center works there's no reason to insult people for suggesting it. At most you could mention that you can also do it in the command line, which might be faster.

[DigitalGoat]

5 minutes ago, Elarion said:

I understand being able to memorize the list of commands for things in Bash like file manipulation and updating/upgrading the os and existing software packages. I even get it for altering system settings, since turning all of that into GUI stuff would end up turning it into another Windows, where there's 90 different menus. Yes, you can eventually find stuff, but it's very bloaty and clunky.

 

What I don't get though, is why it's so common to use it to install software, desktop environments, etc. There's no way to figure out exactly what to type unless you look it up. You have to look stuff up so often to use the terminal because everything has its own addresses or terminology. There are definitely patterns, but nowhere near enough to reliably use the terminal to install everything. But I've stumbled across many posts asking about installing certain things (usually desktop environments or other modifications to the OS) where one person tells them that it's possible to find those things in the software center, and then a TON of people come in and just dump all over that person for suggesting that, saying they need to use the command line, it's the proper way, etc. But how are those people doing anything without living in a constant state of Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste.

It's called gatekeeping, an eliteist attitude that needs to die.

Do things whichever way suits you, there is no right or wrong way as long as the result is what you want.

Most terminal commands have help subjects associated with them both in Linux and Windows, browsing a folder of command utilities gives you an idea of what functions are on offer, print it out for reference then go through the commands listing the help topics for each to see how to use them.

A lot of terminal use is learned over time, no one is born knowing all commands and switches.

[kelvinhall05]

2 minutes ago, Elarion said:

updating/upgrading the os and existing software packages

This is usually nearly identical syntax to installing new packages (or removing existing, or upgrading individual, etc etc). It all happens within one CLI-based program. For instance, if I wanted to upgrade my entire system, I just type:

yay

To install a new package(s):

yay -S package_name other_package_name

To remove them:

yay -R package_name

etc.

3 minutes ago, Elarion said:

There's no way to figure out exactly what to type unless you look it up.

I mean, at most you're looking up the package name. You have to do that with Windows too, except you're Googling for the website itself, then the download page, then installing it manually. That being said, I find most package names on Linux are pretty intuitive and often nearly identical to program names (with minor variations like hyphens instead of spaces).

 

I think the exception to this are any distros using apt for package management, or AUR packages without a helper (like yay in the commands above). Having to add repositories (Ubuntu) can be clunky and having to essentially manually build packages (AUR sans helper) can be difficult too. But ultimately both follow the same syntax, just with different names or whatever.

7 minutes ago, Elarion said:

But how are those people doing anything without living in a constant state of Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste, Google, copy, paste.

It's faster than having to live in a constant state of Windows search, nothing, shit that opened Edge, close edge, search again, ok settings, shit it's not in settings, search again, control panel, search again, shit not there either, search again, open Chrome, search how to do action, oh it's in this menu, repeat.

[RONOTHAN##]

4 minutes ago, Elarion said:

What I don't get though, is why it's so common to use it to install software, desktop environments, etc.

Partially out of habit because most of the store GUIs are kind of bad (or at least historically have been, some have gotten better), and partially because there are some utilities, especially more command line focused ones like Vim that aren't usually available through the GUI store front. Plus most tutorials out there online do it command line based because it's much quicker to do, so you just start going there by default. 

 

5 minutes ago, Elarion said:

There's no way to figure out exactly what to type unless you look it up.

You can just search for it. If you're on Ubuntu/another Debian based distro it would be "apt search" followed by the program you're looking for, and it'll tell you the exact name in the repos. Not that different than if you had to search in the GUI. 

 

10 minutes ago, Elarion said:

But I've stumbled across many posts asking about installing certain things (usually desktop environments or other modifications to the OS) where one person tells them that it's possible to find those things in the software center, and then a TON of people come in and just dump all over that person for suggesting that,

To be fair, a lot of times the dependencies for those aren't handled correctly by the software centers, so if you try to do it that way you can break your OS. If you're trying to do something more advanced like that, doing it through the command line is much safer. 

[Levent]

Also, after using the same distro for few years googling becomes a lot less frequent. I used to google everything, nowadays I can probably setup my home server with my eyes closed.

[manikyath]

people that use the terminal for "everything" live their lives in denial.

 

for those places where the terminal is the better option (or powershell, to include the windows folks) it is usually exactly how you describe it: research what command to use (google, man pages, powershell help) and issue one or two commands to do exactly what you want to do, faster than it would have been done by crunching trough menu's.

[DigitalGoat]

2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

It's faster than having to live in a constant state of Windows search, nothing, shit that opened Edge, close edge, search again, ok settings, shit it's not in settings, search again, control panel, search again, shit not there either, search again, open Chrome, search how to do action, oh it's in this menu, repeat

Most of the Windows functions accessable through menus can also be opened using the run box, all you need to know is the syntax and the target, research covers that. You can use menus or you can use quicker methods.

[10leej]

So really it's not like I know the ins and outs of every single command ever.

I often actually have to reference the man pages for basic commands including the man command itself. But a lot of it is really just muscle memory of going through it for so long.

 

It's not like I live in denial, it's that when I curl wttr.in to get my weather report it's because I've looked at those charts for so long I know what I'm looking it.

 

Its all "Expected Input = Expected Output"

 

It's literally much the same reason you use a GUI for everything. It's because your familiar with it.

[kelvinhall05]

1 hour ago, DigitalGoat said:

Most of the Windows functions accessable through menus can also be opened using the run box, all you need to know is the syntax and the target, research covers that. You can use menus or you can use quicker methods.

Sooooo....exactly the same as a Linux terminal? lol

[LloydLynx]

It just comes with experience. Years of dinking around will lead you to understanding the syntax of many programs, package managers, and complex bash stuff even. You know that intuition we all have about how to navigate a modern GUI, even one we've never used before, weither an OS, a program, or a website? That applies to CLI's too. Eventually you'll know program syntax, bash syntax, and how your system works well enough to look like a hacker to the average folk and be able to make use of man pages to problem solve without the internet. 

[DigitalGoat]

7 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Sooooo....exactly the same as a Linux terminal? lol

Exactly, I was directly replying to your example of, I assume, Windows menu nesting and search failure in the GUI and the frustration resulting.

Which example is similar to how people react without much Linux experiance when faced with the terminal there.

The problem is, as the OP says, when on a Linux based forum you tend to be shouted down and made fun of if you refer to a GUI option, often with 'if you want OS for dummies, use Windows', the truth being that as many if not more Windows functions can be run from the run box, command, PowerShell & terminal, the same as with Linux.

Having a terminal open on either OS for running commands is always going to be quicker than finding a menu or drilling down through layers of shortcuts, but it is not the ONLY way to use an OS and should not be enforced through some wierd sense of purism and insulting behaviour, which is the meat of the OP's post.

[kelvinhall05]

7 hours ago, DigitalGoat said:

Exactly, I was directly replying to your example of, I assume, Windows menu nesting and search failure in the GUI and the frustration resulting.

Which example is similar to how people react without much Linux experiance when faced with the terminal there.

The problem is, as the OP says, when on a Linux based forum you tend to be shouted down and made fun of if you refer to a GUI option, often with 'if you want OS for dummies, use Windows', the truth being that as many if not more Windows functions can be run from the run box, command, PowerShell & terminal, the same as with Linux.

Having a terminal open on either OS for running commands is always going to be quicker than finding a menu or drilling down through layers of shortcuts, but it is not the ONLY way to use an OS and should not be enforced through some wierd sense of purism and insulting behaviour, which is the meat of the OP's post.

My bad, I do agree with you, I just thought you were suggesting that to somehow prove me wrong, not support the point of using a terminal.

 

I think the issue with suggesting non-terminal ways to get some specific action done in Linux is it varies vastly across different systems. If you have one person running Arch with KDE and another running Ubuntu with its default DE, you can't suggest the same nested menus to accomplish something, but chances are you can suggest an identical or similar command that'll work on both systems.

[wasab]

Mostly because a lot of the linux gui softwares just suck. I can't recall how many times gnome software centers just freeze for hours before finally spitting out a message that's says something went wrong when trying to upgrade the system. Nowadays I always use the terminal for certain tasks like updating and upgrading. 

 

A lot of gui like gparted are just gui front end to the cli applications. They just add extra level of inefficiency between the functionality you want.

 

For terminal, you literally just need to understand these few commands and concepts below to use it proficiently.

 

1) cd

2) ls

3) pwd

4) file op, mkdir, touch, mv, cp

5) editor of your choice. Nano, vim ect

6) grep

7) cat

8) pipe and chaining (&&, |)

9) chmod

10) chown 

11) output and input redirect (<,>,<<,>>)

12) find or locate command

13) proccess and child proccess management. E.g. jobs, kill, fg, bg, &, crl-z(crl-c is also important hotkeys)

14) which command and the env variables/path for your bin

15) sudo

16) if you are advanced, also something like sed, allias, plus ssh and screen

 

That's it. These above are the core concepts. other commands you can just treat them like any other softwares. You read their manuals like the manpage. Most would have a --help flag as well.