Linked by Greg Afinogenov on Wed 3rd Sep 2003 07:19 UTC
It is not fashionable nowadays to speak of the merits of the command line, in an age where things like streaming video and Aqua are an integral part of our daily life. However, I do not think that typed-in commands must necessarily be consigned to the dustbin of computer history. Of course, I am not suggesting that we all drop X and Windows and pretend like we are living in the early eighties. The command line interface still has much to offer us, and many of its benefits simply cannot physically be emulated or even replaced by graphical ones.
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I didn't use a GUI for about the first 4 years of my computing experience so I got pretty used to the CLI. People who complain about KDE have never suffered through MSDOS print files, PDP11 bootstrap sequences (flicking switches), 80x25 monochrome screen resolutions or teletype terminals on mainframes.
Even XP needs a fair bit of CLI to get to the nitty gritty of many configurations such as advanced disk tools. The reality is that it is much easier to open the command prompt and type chkdsk rather than than going through half a dozen folders in the start menu and clicking.
Installing Ximian desktop or switching to administrator is a breeze ...I'd rather type su than use XPs fast user switching anytime.
That said both GUI and CLI tools should be available for almost all tasks.