linuxmemes

The controversial opinions come in the form of "GUI is better than CLI" or vice-versa. I prefer the efficiency of keyboard-only navigation/usage, but I think GUIs are cool af and a great way to be noob-friendly

In the same way some GUIs are trash, lord have mercy some CLIs are trash. Things like adding two verbose flags makes it extra verbose. Things like the parameter order mattering. Yeesh. It can be rough. It really varies tool by tool.

The main advantage of CLI is that its easier to instruct people on what to do and easier to get answers from people about how to use a CLI, and you can copy paste. If you know how to use the GUI though it can be a powerful tool as well.

I like GUIs for a handle of simple on and off options. Like quick connect to VPN.

I have a good example of "both are useful" on my second screen right now, but it's a difference in output and not input. I was watching system resource utilization a few minutes ago while running something, so I have plasma's graphical System Monitor on half the screen while I have a big ole terminal window with htop running next to it.

The GUI side uses the speed and bandwitdth of our visual processing to communicate complex historical data about a handful of values very quickly. It does it with graphs that, while accurate and to scale, are a bit analog and imprecise feeling to the eye.

The text-based side uses the speed and bandwidth of the hardware to show me a huge 2D array of values that constantly updates. It does it with monospaced text in a high-readability font that is very clear and precise.

The GUI does more processing on the computer first to communicate quickly about the targeted values, while the text side leaves more of that processing to be done on my end. But that's not a negative, because I can search through those hundreds of values as quickly as my eyes can dart around the screen. There's no navigating a GUI that quickly.

In general when it comes to GUI vs CLI, I like GUIs too. I am just old enough that I remember how awesome it was to start using graphical desktops and file managers and computer mice and all that. But I'm an engineer who uses the terminal every single day, and I often just leave it open when I'm at work with a bunch of monitors. To me, any decent computer must have a powerful CLI and text-based configuration and scripting and all that.

For most USERs, the GUI is all that matters. And since the GUI needs to be simple and rock solid, it can be advantageous to just leave the arcane shit in the text files and not try to cram everything into the GUI. If I want to change my screen resolution, system fonts, or change my network connection, I expect to find that in the GUI and I'll just go there. But when I want to be the dork customizing the colors on my GRUB screen or tweaking the swap/cache behavior of my OS, I'm quite glad to edit text for those.

Linux has GUIs for any setting you could need.

Windows has the registry and random PowerShell commands from the internet if the setting is even something you can change.

Depends on what I’m doing. Some things I prefer cli. Some things GUI is easier or quicker. There’s no wrong way to do anything.

I like GUIs if they aren't web browsers pretending to be a desktop applications.

Don't let random nerds on the internet make you feel any way about how you use Linux. Live your life and be happy. There's too much bullshit in the world to pay attention to jerks with keyboards.

Is this a meme or a picture you choose. Either way, I love it! And I feel with same by the way.

Depends on the GUI. I love having GUIs for things, but I might have a hard time deciding between using CLI to launch everything and using GNOME.

I CAN interact with CLI, but i WANT to interact with good GUI. I don't want to learn CLI commands when I don't have to. Especially in the cases where I use it rarely

I do too! Most of us do to some extent. If I can right click on a network icon in my taskbar and get an IP, that's cake!

But then, it doesn't work on my friends box, and it's no there after an update, and when I search for how to do it all I see is the way it used to work or i'm told it's somewhere that doesn't even seem to exist.

Gui's change, vendor to vendor, update to update, they're poorly documented, and have the most chance of being wrong or missing features.

Use your GUI's as long as they give you what you need, but learn your CLI, because it almost never changes, is well documented and works for you and all your new friends that have abandoned windows no matter which linuxy way they went.

They are good for discoverability, but suck when you have to do the same thing 5 times.

-- signed, a guy currently having to use a GUI to update the firmware on 5 headsets, and put our standard settings on them

I like tuis

I get CLI users, sometimes using the cli is faster and more efficient.

However I have had frequent discussions with people (all of them also avid CLI users) that set up infrastructure as code. I prefer the super understandable Gui of a tool like octopus deploy over hundreds of yaml files whose content can only be understood by doing a year long deep dive any day.

They always use the same two arguments: Infrastructure as code allows you to rebuild your entire software deployment from scratch, and the code can be versioned, thereby providing an audit trail for deployments.

In decades of software development I have exactly had to redeploy an entire network from scratch 0 times. If you're in that stage the cause is most likely hardware and re-provisioning that will probably take the bulk of your time.

About the versioning: I'm not arguing against storing deployments as yaml files, but writing them by hand is insanely inefficient. There should be a nice GUI that generates and writes these yaml files, so you don't have to know every option an value and every validation rule by heart.

Also, I am relatively certain that a tool like octopus deploy also has auditing of who deployed what software in which location.

Burn them! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Use what makes you happy. I codify a bunch of my python shit with Textualizer (so that guifications can be used), and it makes users happy. Its not my choice, but if the user likes it, ok then.

I like GUIs but I also like automation. Give me a nice simple GUI but also give me a way to run from a bash shell so I can automate functions based on complex conditions and/or a schedule.

me too, but only if it's a good gui...

GUIs are nice. we are made for visual perception. don't feel bad about it.

often, when one sees things presented visually, such as all the files in a directory, it makes much more sense much faster than if one has to read the filenames on a console.

GUIs are actually superior for human-friendlyness in many cases, but their functionality is limited and also they can't be scripted. also it's much faster to write a CLI program than a GUI program (at least for me).

The thing about CLI is that everything is hidden by default. You come to the application with your own mindset and a goal in mind and you figure out how make it do what you want.
When there's a GUI, you often see everything that's possible from the start and so the application dictates how you use it.

Though, you can do either with CLI and GUI as well. That's the sweet spot I think is the best. I love it when a CLI app guides the user through a process and gives options. And a good GUI should disable OK buttons and show validation errors if not everything is entered correctly.

In a perfect world, every app has a CLI mode, interactive and non interactive and a GUI mode with full validation and responsive UI changes. But realistically, good UX is what we need, either GUI or CLI.

Being using computers since 1992. I learned with DOS and SCO Unix.

I prefer GUIs, thank you very much.

Even when the only available option for me was Windows 3.1, I still preferred it over the CMD.

I like both, but I think I would like cli better if the syntax were more expressive, and more akin to natural human language.

This is the energy we need.

New comers should never ever see or require a terminal.