Do I need to type commands to use Linux?
That’s more or less the question that this short blog post poses. And that brief read got me thinking.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Linux among the people I know who have actually heard of (and not everyone has). Most of them don’t know much about Linux, and what they do know is anywhere from five to 12 years out of date. That’s kind of scary considering the amount of information that’s floating around. Then again, considering the amount of FUD out there it’s not surprising.
The three biggest of these misconceptions that I run into are:
- Linux is hard to install, which I talked about here
- It has poor driver support, which I detailed in another post
- You need to use the command line to do anything in Linux
I’m going to take a look at the last one.
Guess what? You don’t
The command line is a powerful tool. With a few keystrokes (or by using scripts or shortcuts), you can perform tasks in one or two steps that can take multiple sets in a graphical user interface. For some tasks, the command line is just a faster and more efficient way of doing things. If you want more information, check this out.
But the command line isn’t an essential element when using Linux. In fact, I know several Linux users who have never opened a terminal and typed a command. In fact, the only time they’ve typed commands is when they’ve pressed Alt+F2 to open the Run dialog box or if they’ve used a task launcher like GNOME Do.
Every Linux distribution you’re bound to try has a graphical user interface. Everything you need to do is menu and mouse driven. Sure, these interfaces will take a bit of getting used to if you’re jumping in from the Windows or Mac world, but they’re not impossible to learn. You can adapt quickly.
The command line is always there. Sort of like it is in Windows and Mac OS — cmd.exe or Terminal.app anyone? Simply because the command line is there doesn’t mean you need to use it. Like some of my Linux-using pals, the Windows and Mac OS adherents in my circle have never jumped to the command line.
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June 30th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
[...] http://scottnesbitt.net/ubuntublog/?p=465 [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 2:35 am
Well, they do if they use something like Debian and possibly, occasionally in Ubuntu. If they launch their Linux journey in something like Mandriva or PCLinuxOS, then no. The difference is the Mandriva Control Center (PCLinuxOS Control Center in PCLinuxOS). No distro should be without it, or something similar such as YaST in OpenSuse.
July 1st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] Do I need to type commands to use Linux? Guess what? You don’t [...]
August 1st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
[...] I know that I wrote that you don’t need to drop to the command line in order to use Linux. But a knowledge of the [...]