5 Reasons to Start Using the Linux Command Line
Quoting: 5 Reasons to Start Using the Linux Command Line —
Some swear by it, some swear at it. We’re talking about the command line, that venerable human-computer interface that’s been around for over fifty years and still isn’t going anywhere soon. Even in today’s world of swish graphical interfaces and touch-screen convenience, there’s a place for the command line.
Back when Unix was developed in the late 1960s and very early 1970s, there was no such thing as a graphical user interface (GUI), nor a desktop environment (DE). Typing was the only game in town. If you wanted to interact with a computer, you used a keyboard, and you didn’t think twice about it.
This had design implications. Because you were limited to typing, every aspect of the computer’s configuration, operation, and administration had to be controllable by typing commands. That was true of Unix over half a century ago, and it’s still true of Linux today. You can do anything from the command line. Nothing is beyond your reach.
Today, at its core, Linux is still a keyboard-driven operating system. You can have a complete Linux system running without a desktop environment, and many servers are used in that way. On the desktop, of course, most users have a DE.