[HLUG] Command Line Witchcraft?

[AT Ege]

Hi there

>> As my partner commented when I spoke about this conversation 
>> 'why would i want to do any of that stuff - I don't want lots of choice
>> - if I want to go to Tenbury I just get in the car and go - I don't need
>> to be a motor mechanic to drive a car'
> 
> ah, time to re-read Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
> Maintenance" as there is a very eloquent argument that everyone who does
> drive a car (or motorbike) _should_ know how it works and the basics of
> fixing and tuning it. 
Yeah. But it might be useful to know what kind of combustion you got - 
petrol or diesel, and where to fill it in. It might also be useful to 
know how to check and fill up air pressure, oil, window washing. And if 
you go somewhere, esp some country lanes, it might not hurt to know how 
to change a tyre as well.

And I guess, if there's a problem with the car, he brings it to a 
garage, and doesn't phone them and if they tell him to grab some tools 
and open some screws he complains that he isn't interested what's inside.
So the proper answer to some computer questions might indeed be, if 
you're not interested in doing something you haven't done before, try 
somebody who knows what he's doing. Even if it costs money. ;-)
That point actually is indifferent to cli or gui, or even windows or 
linux. :-)

To the 'conflict' cli/ gui:
When I migrated from Win to Linux, which was about ten years ago, I 
first mainly worked with guis, and did only things that couldn't be done 
otherwise on the cli. Slowly the cli replaced some things, as I noticed 
that in some cases it offers me more flexibility, if less comfort. But 
sometimes that's the need.
By now I use cli and gui parallel. I usually work with KDE, but I always 
have a few bash open. On the one side, for programs like get_iplayer, 
and I don't find that programm, for example, less comfortable than a 
gui. For some things, especially stuff involving lots of files, like 
renaming, I find the command line actually way more comfortable and 
faster then a gui.
Or with my digital photography: I use guis like digikam, gwenview or 
hugin heavilly. But for converting raw pictures, I go for a mix. I do 
all the settings with ufraw, as a gui. But I only write the files, not 
the actual conversion. That's done with ufraw-batch on the command line.
Other examples where I, personally, find the cli better are searching 
stuff: if my database is nice up-to date locate works like a charm, 
better then the KDE search tool, esp if I don't exactly know where the 
file might be. Or starting an application, when I don't wanna search the 
menus. Just type the name, or part of and tab, and if it is in the path, 
here it goes.
Error tracking without cli, I can't imagine anymore. Trouble with a 
programm? Start it from cli, and in 80% of the cases you get a message, 
that points you, or somebody on the list, the right way.

Then some programms got so many options, it gives me a frigging 
headache, like mplayer.
I do copy & paste commandline commands, but so far I haven't damaged my 
system. At least not in a way I can remember. I get more problems from 
incompatible system updates.
But then I use a lot of betas and Gentoo, so that probably doesn't 
count. ;-)

Or, in a nutshell:
To begin with I disliked the cli, and couldn't imagine why anyone would 
want to use it.
By now, I couldn't imagine working without it anymore.

And I think it's a fine thing, that we got both options with linux, 
whatever brand we prefer. I definetely would call it a feature, though I 
think you could run a linux comparative to a windows without bothering 
with cli.

Just my opinions...



-- 
Andreas Ege

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