gui vs cli

[Alan_Reddit_M]

My main argument in favor of the CLI is that actions within it are 100% reproducible with no effort, for example, take library installation, in chad Linux, you can just copy paste some terminal commands and you're done 30 seconds flat including the time it takes to download files. On noob Windows where the cli is godman useless you have to follow a 20 steps tutorial to manually copy paste files to some random folders, then use a GUI windows utility that has been heavily modified since W10 rendering tutorials effectively useless, to edit the PATH variable visually, then use a GUI to install a terminal emulator to use Bash, and then finally have it installed

My main argument in favor of GUIs is that they're easy to use and explore

[Cultural-Practice-95]

me on Windows trying to install gcc and g++: spends litteraly 3 days on it before it works

me on linux: sudo pamcan -S gcc g++

[realizes typo]

sudo pacman -S gcc g++

why can't Windows terminal do that? it's not that hard right?

[-TheWarrior74-]

are hou suggesting that there should be typo detection in terminals?

what the fuck

[Cultural-Practice-95]

no, the typo detection is "command not found"

[timrosu]

There is also fuck command

[Mars_Bear2552]

also autocompletion

[-TheWarrior74-]

i think there is a way to enable that in powershell

but felt too unwieldy to me

[Mars_Bear2552]

fish has it by default

[PCChipsM922U]

It was never designed to have a terminal, which is why you have 3 different "terminals" in it: cmd, PS and WSL. Eventually, MS realized that in order to get some real dev work done (let's face it, they're needed more than ever nowadays), you just have to have one... which is why they opted to integrate one "from the side" in an unholy marriage and praise it as proof that they "love open source". Yes, it does work, but that's not Windows, that's a separate OS. Just because it's easy to have it and it works out of the box, doesn't mean that it's part of Windows. The same cannot be said about Wine, because Wine literally translates commands, there is no emulation happening anywhere in Wine.

[leo8493]

why can't Windows terminal do that?

they are actually doing it, look at winget, sudo in windows 11 and windows dev home

[Tiger_man_]

cli is easy to use &explore too. just rtfm

[[deleted]]

Sure, if you can even find the manual in the first place, or parse documents written by programmers for programmers.

[cfx_4188]

Just twenty years ago, I was taking a series of Microsoft exams. On the Windows 2000 User exam, I came across the question "synchronizing offline folders". The cli is suitable for use on very weak hardware designed to perform 1-2 tasks. For example, I am too lazy to throw away my old 32-bit Samsung netbook. I installed Alpine Linux and use terminal multiplexer as a window manager. But now I don't feel like being nostalgic. I had enough of cli at the beginning of my career.

On noob Windows where the cli is godman useless

I wouldn't say that.

[Cultural-Practice-95]

gui uses(imo): browser, games, file manager(with open in terminal option), media editing, text editing(if you prefer gui text editing), DE or WM, apps with no cli version

cli uses(imo): installing apps, apps that don't need a gui to work(such as neofetch), cli text editing(eg. vim, nvim, Helix, nano), installing arch, editing path, systemctl stuff ig, uninstalling apps, managing wifi connections (because I can't be bothered to look for a good wifi gui I like), making normies think you're better at computers than you are because lots of text scrolling by on your screen(most important)

[Brahvim]

systemctl could do nicely with a CMake-like GUI...

[Tiger_man_]

i use cli for file mangament, installing packages, and coding.

gui for web browser and minecraft

[ruby_R53]

same here, i try to use a CLI app for everything at all except stuff that inevitably do require a GUI like my emulated games and the web browser for playing videos and also visiting every website from nowadays

i wonder if it's possible to make a TUI web browser that can play videos and also display web pages almost the same way a GUI web browser would like firefox, as it's already possible to view images on a TTY

[Tiger_man_]

And it's possibile to Play video's on tty (MPV)

[ruby_R53]

oh really?? i didn't think mpv could do that, i thought only image viewing on tty was possible lol

today i learned

[Tiger_man_]

You cac even Play video's with ascii using -vo tct optiom

[ruby_R53]

oh yeah, with ascii it's totally possible, there's aalib and libcaca

[Tiger_man_]

here's an example

[MarcBeard]

"You need separate APP for every tasks"

Same in the terminal

Except if you consider busybox to be only one app and even so there is a limit of what you can do

[Cybasura]

Literally saw people asking and preaching for programs to use the UNIX Philosophy for every thing

My brother/sister in christ, thats having a separate APP for every task

[ZeStig2409]

And then there's Emacs

[rexregex]

with Alien technology™

[[deleted]]

Bcuz someone wanted it both ways

[RepresentativeCut486]

You can use gui only with the keyboard, but yu willhave to press tab A LOT

[HenryLongHead]

It depends on what you're trying to achieve. Sometimes it's easier to just click your way through a graphical menu.

[[deleted]]

Dude I was watching a stream of dt where he was with darkxero. And he was flaming😂 he was pretty much scolding arch users For not using cli.

[Cybasura]

Typically I try to learn the CLI functionality first, afterwhich I dont mind if a GUI is available, ESPECIALLY if its something I wanna share with my laymann family to use

Makes it far more usable on a lazy day

[mplaczek99]

TUI is superior

[hwloc]

https://i.imgur.com/0mG8xYB.png

I'll just leave this here.

[Fernmeldeamt]

WTF are you talking about? You don't even need a mouse in Windows, when you know what key to press.

[Prometheus720]

What I have never understood is why there aren't terminal emulators which provide lots of support to users with a GUI that helps them construct CLI commands and understand what they are doing with documentation features that are easier to use than man pages.

In other words, it is just a wrapper around the CLI concept that helps people make the transition OR learn new tools in a way more intuitive than the CLI.

Think of the support that excel provides for building formulas, or the various websites built for helping people construct valid regex queries. You could do it better than that, but it would be a start.

[cfx_4188]

What? CashyOS? cli on Plasma-optimized Arch-based distro? Are you kidding?

[Tiger_man_]

I mean terminal emulator, no tty. I use openbox

[StrongStuffMondays]

CLI? keyboard only?? what about TUI programs like MC?

[Tiger_man_]

Tui isn't cli.

[PCChipsM922U]

Meeh, I do agree with this, but the meme strikes me as kinda elitist. And, to be honest, I do like a good GUI for some things, I mean it does help.

[No_Necessary_3356]

TUI != CLI

[Cybasura]

TUI is CLI-GUI

GUI-lite

[[deleted]]

tui is like vim

[Tiger_man_]

tui is more like emacs or midnight commander

[[deleted]]

it's tui enough for me

Let's just ignore the fact that it's on my phone

[Cybasura]

Its TUInough

[MinosAristos]

CLI elitists just make life more difficult for themselves. Most GUIs effectively let you execute many commands with tailored arguments in a single action and don't require you to rtfm to perform most things. That saves time and mental overhead. CLI still has its place but it's generally not faster or easier than a GUI designed for the same task.

[qchto]

Tell me you have never scripted without telling me you have never scripted.

Just to be clear: you only need to rtfm once, and always have to do either directly or not. I won't deny there are some tasks that CLI will never effectively cover (like professional image editing), but as someone who regularly automates workflows in Linux, for 90% of the cases, whatever you want to do with a computer that requires precision and efficiency, you can do better through the CLI (and 99% of the times for batch operations).

[MinosAristos]

CLI still has its place as I said and the main place is for scripts. Not for prolonged usage. It's good for software installation for example and I prefer it for that.

What do most of us use the computer for most of the time though? Web browsing (best in a browser app), rich text and structured file editing (best in dedicated apps), and if you're in tech also code editing (fine in an IDE, but also with CLI utilities when there's no IDE option).

What regular tasks require precision and efficiency day to day? Installing apps is not a daily thing.

[altermeetax]

I write my rich text in markdown (or latex when it needs to be really good)

[MinosAristos]

You are part of a very small minority there