Is the Command Line Interface (CLI) still relevant?

A lot of GNU/Linux distributions of late are focused strongly on user-friendliness. But does this mean the CLI is losing its purpose and favour? We encourage users to discuss this topic on various grounds.

hhhhmmmmmmmmmmm. Nooby friendly distros will probably get rid of or (hide)
the CLI option in the future...... which is something we've discussed before.....
But I think there will always be distros around that stick to their roots

I reckon ubuntu will rid the Cli like you said ages ago. It's bound to happen one day

I guess in one way or another, this has occurred. I might be wrong, but do some of the embedded distributions of the linux kernel lack a normal CLI (such as Android)??? Even if this doesn't count, perhaps you are right ... I wonder if this has crossed Canonical's collective minds?

Thats a good question.... I'm not sure about android....
I know you can ssh from an Android device to your Linux O.S so it must have a cli??? or maybe a gui for ssh... i'm not sure......

Oh god I hope they don't start totally hiding the thing

Personally if I didn't at least have access to a proper CLI shell interface I'd feel very restricted and when X goes down (or Wayland...).. the CLI has got me out of trouble in many situations involving the graphical side of things, even if it's just killing off an app that I couldn't kill in X because the GUI had practically frozen up, while the base OS continues running normally.

I think obscuring the CLI is wrong.. I mean, for newbie users etc in distros like Ubuntu, by all means introduce these easy to use GUI programs to do things automatically, but at least leave access to the CLI for the intermediate/advanced user..

But then again, I'm someone who will often use MOC over Rhythmbox lol

I don't think the cli will be hidden, I think it will always be made accessible. For a lot of people they may well never have to go near it, but in my opinion you are doing yourself a disservice by avoiding it. There are so many powerful command line tools, not to mention shell scripting and with enough knowledge, fix a borked system and get back to your gui. Then there are things like remote administration via ssh and moving miles to multiple machines at once using scp.

I am a CLI fan. I love using it and I encourage others to learn it. I find it faster to use in many situations and I find many who agree with me. I doubt that the CLI will be hidden, to me that restricts you and takes freedom away. I'm sure even the people on the noob distros will see plenty of command line action because the more advanced linux users will give help with the CLI.

As many have said the CLI is a useful tool and when the GUI goes down you need a CLI to fix it. And rebooting may not fix it. The only way it could be removed it to restrict user freedom of installing and removing programs/applications and to make sure the distro is as stable and couldn't break. Which in my opinion won't happen for a very long time as before a distro can be fully stable you need users that know what they are doing.

I personally think that if they take away access to the cli an incredible amount of issues will rise and it will make fixing them a hell of a lot harder. Also you can access cli on android you just need to download an app to be able to access it.

I still use the command line in Windows, why would anyone think it's going anywhere in Linux? True enough, some distros have made it unnecessary, but it's still a lot faster at most times than clicking through the menus looking for a GUI application.

the cli will never go away, general home users may never need it but it will always be there. SO much FOSS software development is done in it, *NIX system administration is done in it etc. It's relevance depends on the user, but I think only an idiot would call for it's elimination.

I don't think I could live without the awesomeness that is "grep" either

I use the command line all the time. I can see why you may want to avoid it for beginners, but Linux is about hacking your own system, and if you don't learn at least some of what's going on under the hood, you compromise your ability to fix things. Everything in Linux can be accessed by a command more or less, and the gui just hides this, So if your gui ever crashes (like mine did last week when updating my mom's Ubuntu box), you're stuck. But if you know your command line, you can just download a Slackware iso and put it on a pendrive, then save your system. It really handicaps you of you choose to learn nothing other than your favourite gui.

Well said rflejeune and welcome to the forum

yeah Welcome rflejeune

Forums been a bit slow in here lately. lmao. Trying to get more
people over in the forums and in the chatroom, That's why I advertise the shit out
of it on my video's now. lol

Yeah that's how I found you, looking at YouTube and saw some of your vids.

ah ok cool. So it's working... slowly

anyways... again. Welcome.

I think it will always be.
The only formal training I ever received was in the military in '91 and it was on a Unix machine. I can't for anything remember much about it as in version or anything but it was actual Unix. At the time we also had a DOS computer which stunk as I remember it. The only thing it had going for it was typing tutor. Much of the time it was "down". The Unix system almost never ever went down unless we were told to reboot them. I don't remember much about it either other than "ls" and the cut and paste commands. However that experience has stuck with me and it's why I chose Linux today over any other offering from M$ or Apple. Although I like Apple. Thing is there is still a ton of fun to be had in a terminal. I can't imagine sitting here without at least one terminal running something, even if it's just top. I dunno, isn't it so much more rewarding to figure out how to edit a file and save it with vi than any graphical text editor?
Heck I can usually accomplish the task quicker with the command line. I just love it and would rather use weechat any day over Konversation. That's me though.
I do know with Windows I never saw any reason to open a Dos prompt. Mostly cause I found it useless. Plus I would just get quickly frustrated when "ls" didn't work.
Anyway I don't know if I really said anything, just another soliloquy. I apologize for that.

No, well said IMO. And welcome to the forums

I can't imagine living without the command line/terminals.

Pretty visuals and ease of use are nice, but for someone who is inclined to learn a bit, are a bit adventurous etc... knowing the CLI is very rewarding.

using linux and not ever wanting to use the cli is retarded in my opinion
there is always going to be a time when you will need it.... and you cannot troubleshoot problems/fix them often without it.......

kaddy

Btw just for interest. The Unix system was known as groundline. Some had the ol green screens, some were amber. Either way at the end of a shift you were blinking away the screen for a couple hours. One day I strolled into work and there was a shiny new computer at my station. It was called Parsec 2. It has a windowed OS on it. And it stunk on ice. This about '92 I'm not sure what was on that computer but I do remember taking it out of the windows to the command line which we called ascii. This had to be done on a regular basis, but it didn't matter I never used the thing it was so slow and once you tried to do a couple things on it it slowed to a crawl. Unix was just crash proof seemed like so that's where the work got done. Now I did at the time have a Top Secret clearance but the base is closed and I really doubt any of that stuff is still around. If it is I suppose I'll be in prison soon for talking to much...

Even on windows I've had to resort to the command line. On any OS you could end up needing it.