The thing about the terminal you don’t need to know everything. Just a few basic commands get you moving and it kinda clicks. It is pretty optional with Linux most of the time. But I love using it is fast af for file management.
The thing about engineers is that I expected it to be the bushy bearded guy. That’s a stereotype, I know.
3 terminal apps that got me hooked:
mednafen (emulating a PS1 on a net potato with 2gb of ram and an atom processor at a playable framerate was just magic to me)
moc (epically minimal music player that just feels right)
nano (I wrote a series of short stories using it while listening to music on moc, honestly the most zen-like experience I’ve ever had)
Bonus: radion (an online radio player mostly written in bash I discovered in the early days of Lemmy)
The best part of Hannah Montana Linux is that there is no terminal. You just stick your dick into the interface hole, or ofc you can jam the interface stick inside you, and it knows what you want done without you having to do anything.
Yeah sure…
I had a friend who wasn’t very technical who had some issue where he couldn’t boot into his OS (Windows) and bought a new computer, but wanted the files off the old computer. So he asked me for help. I remember bringing a Knoppix live CD (remember Knoppix?) And when I was there, I realized I had a severe lack of general networking equipment. (I didn’t have a switch, so I couldn’t plug both computers into the network so they could communicate with each other and the internet.)
So I started up the old computer in Knoppix, plugged it into the network, and installed a bunch of networking packages like a DHCP server and such. And then I used the Ethernet cable to plug the two computers into each other, letting the Knoppix box give the new Windows machine its IP. And then I installed Putty on the Windows machine and used it to SCP the files from the old machine to the new one.
The whole thing went way smoother than I’d have expected, never having attempted that before. But I felt like such a hacker that day. Lol.
Apple used to have a function in macs with FireWire, where if you had T pressed down on the keyboard while booting, the computer booted into a mode where you could use it as a FireWire external hard drive. An insanely useful feature, for migrating files off old machines, installing OS onto a machine without a functional optical drive, quickly stealing your friend’s hard drive contents etc.
It’s a shame it didn’t really take off as a more common feature. It would be a useful feature in so many situations, nowadays the closest I can get to it is a custom USB stick with a linux distro that tries to discover all volumes and expose them as network drives, but it’s a lot more complicated to use than just having something you plug in and it simply works. I’d love it if they did a similar thing with thunderbolt, but as far as I know it’s no longer an option.
I think they still do that with Thunderbolt.
I remember going through tech school 20 years ago and them telling you you need a crossover cable with you at all times for just this type of situation. I think in the 20 years I have used one once.
NICS have had auto crossover detection built-in for like 20 years now too.
Joke aside…
Who has not reached that “just say yes so they shut up”-point with some people?
The text isn’t projecting onto her face. She can’t be a hacker.
I find the terminal very quiet and cozy compared to desktop apps.
I have probably an unhealthy amount of nvim and tmux shortcuts.
It is genuinely shocking how computer illiterate marketing people tend to be.
There’s a reason they have marketing jobs.
They are good at social manipulation and compartmentalization.
The programmers are similarly morally bankrupt, as they’re implementing the enshitification of the worst people, the business people who make the shitty decisions both implement.
Programmers can also create non-enshittified solutions in their off time and release it publicly for free and many do. What good can a marketer do for the world?
Fucking nothing. Marketing is just another word for propaganda. Fuck em.
Programmers can also create non-enshittified solutions in their off time and release it publicly for free and many do.
It’s a nice idea, but what that ultimately boils down to, is horrible to use programs with barely any support because people (reasonably) don’t have the time or support to give them the full beans.
They also result in programs that are basically only made for their users, and that, to everyone else are some weird esoteric programs with outlandish UX.
Like I like open source as much as the next guy, but open source software is not fixing the enshitification of society, especially as devices take away more and more user autonomy. These are bandaid solutions that allow the power users most equipped to make arguments against the hostile enshitification takeover to bury their heads in the sand as they scurry to stay alive, squeezing between the cracks, increasingly having to give up in more and more areas as solutions take more and more focus to keep alive.
Also, more than that, how many programmers actually are doing this? I’d say it’s a rare occurrence.
What good can a marketer do for the world?
Activism. They communicate and convince people, so activism is an area where they could help the world if they so chose.
I must disagree with you there. I get more support from the open source community and their things than I do from commercial stuff. Commercial pretends to offer support that isn’t actually there in 2025. They just have call centers that tell you to reboot and then escalate, which basically turns into stalling until you figure it out yourself.
When was the last time you got support for a Google product? What about Microsoft? Apple? Apple used to have decent support but it’s all the same offshored nonsense that the others have now. Hearing “I don’t know” in an Indian accent isn’t support. Microsoft is the worst of the bunch. They have an entire industry set up with people saying you can get support in their ecosystem but it’s all third parties pointing at eachother and no one taking any responsibility.
I must disagree with you there. I get more support from the open source community and their things than I do from commercial stuff.
I would say this is true, but only in a way that largely misses the finer details and thus the bigger picture.
The biggest example I can think of that that I feel generally represents what I was saying, is the difference between Fusion 360 and FreeCAD, where its free, because thats the value of your time if you use it.
FreeCAD will have a higher likelyhood to have you find a community helper to help with a specific technical problem, and while Autodesk does respond to tickets, they are less hands on and if your ticket gets resolved youll just get a notification a month or 2 later if lucky.
The thing is, Fusion is actually usable, and FreeCAD is painful to use. It is so painful, I won’t even hear the tired “people just aren’t used to it” arguments people love to trot out about it.
It purposefully uses UX that doesn’t match the patterns of any other CAD package, that people (enough that I am comfortable generalizing) find utterly unintuitive, and has had major issues that go unsolved simply because they’re not seen to be issues.
They literally only recently, after literal decades of existing partially solved the most famous problem, the topological naming problem, and they still don’t allow multiple profiles in one sketch.
Its Free, and maybe in some ways it could be said to have “support” but … if you make any money at all, you’d be literally better paying 800 bucks a year to Autodesk to not have to deal with it.
Just to be super clear if you aren’t familiar, Onshape, Solidworks, Inventor, whatever. All of them anyone who has used any of them can switch over and be proficient enough in minutes.
FreeCAD is the far outlier.
It’s so bad, because of the underlying spaghetti code, that some venture capitalists came in, thinking they could just fix the UX and then sell cloud services ontop, tried to fix it, realized the fire, realized there was no way they could make it profitable within a reasonable amount of time, and shut down.
That being said, I fully realize that FreeCAD is at the Gimp end of the spectrum and not the Blender end of the spectrum (with Blender being so good and useful that it is (in places) actually used in industry.
If it makes you feel better (read worse) my company buys around 500,000 chips a year, and we’re still effectively in the same support tier as an individual user.
I’ve pushed for chips with upstream Linux kernel support, even though they’re more expensive, because it’s so bad with proprietary software
Might want to point out doing so now will insulate your company from the shock of being forced to migrate down the road. The entire industry is throwing money into AI in the foreground, while in the background they are preparing their transition away once it explodes and takes titans down.
Everyone outside the US is moving away from the proprietary model.
Well, I dont want to lie for a salary, so im also bad at marketing.
Back in the early 2010s I was sitting on a long train ride, and opened my hacker-sticker-covered netbook and started doing some terminal stuff in a console window; nothing particularly remarkable or exciting-looking, just navigating directories and moving some files around. An older lady sitting next to me glanced over, her eyes got wide, and she got up and moved to a seat further away from me.
I still think about that moment a lot.
There was a guy who got approached by a flight attendant for doing calculus on a plane. Some other passenger had reported him for doing something in Arabic, which we all know could hijack and take down the plane!
To be fair, he was almost certainly using Arabic numerals.
/s, obvs
And it looked like they were counting down!
/s
I used to write html, JS, and CSS on long flights and saw some side eye looks, but then I’d have to test load the website I was working on for mom jeans and the jig was up.
I set my terminal to black text on white when I’m in public.
I don’t want to have to explain what I’m doing to an impatient functionally illiterate backwater cop.The real question is why were you moving files with the terminal emulator?
Because that’s a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do?
Reasonable sure, normal no.
I mean, among people that use terminals, it’s very normal. Commonplace, even.
When im moving a lot of files or directories, i do it because i dont trust windows to not interrupt
The minuscule touchpad sucked on that netbook, making it far quicker and easier to type than smush my finger around while clicking awkwardly-placed buttons.
Yeah I’m a terminal noob, but feels like a file manager would be way easier to move files.
Taking your hands off the keyboard is almost never easier.
Depends on the operation. It’s pretty easy in ranger or vifm.
Just roll up and open hackertyper.net in fullscreen. “This is going to be a bigger problem than I thought…”
Then after five minutes of furious typing you say …
I’M IN
Thanks for this…
The terminal feels like such a haven for me, for its responsiveness. Windows gets slower and slower with each update. Even my Linux DEs are slow now because I’m hardware poor. The terminal is the only app that stays ahead of my typing.
Oof. That must be a single core laptop from 2010 or something, which if true, that sucks.
I have a 13 year old computer around here that had no problems with LMDE6 when last I fired it up. It was relatively high spec when new which takes some of the edge off, but I never had an input lag problem anywhere except maybe badly-written websites.
Just how limited is your computer?
“How slow is it?” My desktop is so slow, it comes with a prompt that says ‘Execute now to guarantee completion before Christmas.’
Yeah. I have a 2011 Macbook Pro with a dual core i7 running Arch and Plasma, and while it’s obviously nowhere near as quick as my M2 Macbook Air, it’s still a perfectly respectable machine. Last week I also put Arch on a ThinkPad T410 with a dual core i5. I wouldn’t want it as my main computer, but it chugs along ok.
have you not used windows 11?
file explorer now takes half a second to open a subfolder, more if within a OneDrive directory. I went back to Win10 because of that. it literally broke my workflow and prevented me from being able to do my job effectively
I wasn’t the only one at the company that saw this behavior either
I haven’t used Windows in earnest since Win 7. No wonder they want to force people to upgrade to new hardware.
I’m on a $4000 computer from 2024 lol, with an NVME SSD. it ain’t the hardware that’s the issue in my case
but yeah, windows runs like shit now. everything is slow. there’s bloatware. nothing just works anymore (not that it all just worked in the past, but at least some of it did)
even fucking notepad has started crashing on me sometimes
btopreally impresses people… Too bad nobody has any interest looking at what I’m doingI feel like using the command line should really be a basic skill taught in school. That would be way more worthwhile than teaching people how to use like microsoft office
Most teachers are already glad when their students graduate with functional literacy and without bullet holes.
Tell me you’re from the USA without telling me you’re from the USA.
Okay, but, like… No? How delusional do you have to be to think something you never have to touch in Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android (and probably less and less going forward in desktop Linux, an already extremely niche OS) is more important than learning how to use a word processor, make presentations, or work with spreadsheets? (Microsoft Office specifically is used because it’s the industry standard as part of a vicious cycle, but not the school’s fault or problem). Do you, like, exist in the real world outside a very specific industry/set of interests?
As a computer science student, I haven’t met anyone that didn’t use terminal on Mac. I am heavily biased.
Also, I think ping is actually very useful for a normal user. Not nearly as useful as (any) office software, but still.
I know you already pointed out your sample is heavily biased, but to reiterate: macOS users you know predominantly from computer science and adjacent engineering fields are a very skewed sample. You can say that sprinkling terminal usage into a middle school computer literacy class is worthwhile, and I might even agree. But to treat it as anything more than something used by enthusiasts, programmers, IT professionals, scientists (on a very basic level that can be learned in 10 minutes), teenagers trying to look badass, and the one-in-a-million frustrated “normie” user who falls into it through some troubleshooting/game modding/etc. tutorial simply isn’t realistic.
Regarding
ping: what good is it going to do a normal user who doesn’t understand basic networking? It can rarely tell me basic useful information, like that my DNS is fucked up (can’t get to websites but can ping). For normal users it’ll just tell them the Internet isn’t working, which they probably already figured out, but how do they resolve it? Pictured: a normal user who can usepingfiguring out their Internet isn’t working. To make something likepingmeaningfully useful, you need to teach them basic Layer 3 concepts too, which is fine, but that’s not a terminal skill – that’s networking skills with a trivial terminal command stapled on.
I don’t think any tool must be taught in school because they’re commonly used. So neither terminal or ms office need be per se. However, scripting, with bash/python/etc could be a good brain workout for the logic.
Scammers use the terminal to trick people into thinking they’ve been hacked, so that’s one reason to at least know it’s not magic.
You don’t think scammers don’t also use other tools?
This is a ridiculous reason to replace more useful general skills with less useful specific skills (for the majority).
Anyone can learn to use an office suite on their own in very little time so there’s no reason to teach it. Being able to use the command line is a valuable skill that makes you a way better computer user no matter what you’re doing and it’s one that a lot of people are missing these days. I don’t think you can really say you know how to use a computer if you can only use it in the very specific ways someone happens to have made a gui for
Anyone can learn to use an office suite on their own
My sweet summer child, if only that were the case…
If I were a god I’d strike anyone manually changing the title font and size instead of using a style with lightning.
I’d wait until they pressed enter twice and started typing so I knew that they weren’t going to update or create a style.
Anyone can learn to use an office suite on their own in very little time so there’s no reason to teach it.
That is one hell of a take. Do you say the same thing about building a budget?
Hot take: using a word processor or spreadsheet program are different from balancing a budget, the latter is something I very much wish they had a larger focus on in school during my time, rather than showing us word art and how to add page numbers.
But come on, everyone has to do mail merge on a daily basis! /s
Anyone can learn to use an office suite on their own in very little time
Okay, should I say the same about a terminal then? I took a single-semester Linux course and had the terminal down pat. Meanwhile, I grew up learning how to use an office suite day in and day out in K–12 and still find new ways to improve my workflow in one.
so there’s no reason to teach it
Besides the fact that it’s a cornerstore of modern society that any white-collar professional will routinely have to work with, sure. (If you want to pull the “we shouldn’t be turning our kids into workers” card for why teaching them basic job skills is bad, things like word processing and spreadsheets are/can be very useful outside of industry too.)
Being able to use the command line is a valuable skill that makes you a way better computer user no matter what you’re doing
Okay, like… kind of? It gives you a better mindset, but in terms of a specific application, unless you’re in a niche part of industry or have niche interests, you will never in your life need to touch the terminal at this point. You will be just fine. Even as a power user, there are few problems normal users would face where I look at the terminal and see a shortcut to something that would be tedious in the GUI – and fuck knows most people use their desktop OS less than I do if they even have one anymore.
and it’s one that a lot of people are missing these days.
Because as noted, no major OS except desktop Linux makes you interact with the terminal in any meaningful way – and even desktop Linux is changing that because designers understand that, while the terminal is a godsend for power users, everyday users have no compelling reason to deal with it.
I don’t think you can really say you know how to use a computer if you can only use it in the very specific ways someone happens to have made a gui for
This is elitist bullshit that isn’t reflected in the real world. It’s not 1992 anymore. If people can efficiently complete the workflows they need via a GUI and never touch the terminal, then good for them; they know how to use a computer. This comment is so profoundly out-of-touch with how most actual humans live their lives that I feel like I’ve tripped and fallen into another reality.
Linux doesn’t “make you interact with the terminal.” Many linux users interact with the terminal because it’s a better tool for many purposes-- not just niche ones as you suggest. Your argument leans heavily on popularity: what most people are doing, but that’s kind of the point of the original comment. People are taught on software and OSs owned and pushed by private companies. It creates such a dependency that it’s hard for people to imagine how one can succeed without them. Knowing the terminal can help one understand GUIs better, and makes it easier to imagine building new ones or modifying existing ones. It also allows a person to recognise when a GUI is unnecessary and a task can be completed faster by keeping your hands on the keyboard and working in the terminal.
I took a single-semester Linux course and had the terminal down pat.
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by this? It sounds a little like you’re implying mastery of the rather vague “terminal.” Do you mean everything in the terminal? Or just a common shell, like bash? Or some common cli tools?
I ask because it seems like you’re suggesting that you can master the unix terminal in just a semester while you learn new important things that affect your workflow in your office suite regularly. I agree with you in regard to the office suite, but vis-a-vis the terminal… I have spent my entire life working in it, and, while I’m very comfortable, I still learn new things that affect my workflow every week at minimum.
But I fear that I’m misunderstanding you here, which is why I ask.
I mean use of the CLI on Linux generally. I used “terminal” vaguely because the original comment used it vaguely. “Down pat” is to say that I’m perfectly comfortable with it, namely that the course taught me:
- How to execute programs from the shell (and interrupt execution/kill processes).
- How to navigate and alter the filesystem, search for files and their contents, etc.
- How to install, remove, and configure software.
- How to set aliases.
- How to write shell scripts.
- How to edit files (although 99% of the time this is useless; I’ll just use something like Kate instead).
- How to parse and interpret program output.
- How to read man pages.
- Generally how to do anything I couldn’t/wouldn’t prefer to do from a GUI instead.
I use the shell vastly more than 99.99% of people and haven’t had a problem with or changed how I interact with it since that course; that to me is “down pat” for the terminal itself. I don’t care if I don’t know every application and flag ever made, because that’s not the point – like knowing how to use a GUI doesn’t mean you’ve memorized all GUI software, just that you know how to interpret the design language of and successfully use new GUI software. If I need to do something my current tools can’t, I can just search for the right program and use the man page to quickly write a command.
Meanwhile, with something like LibreOffice Calc, which I understand is much less feature-rich than the industry standard Excel, I don’t just learn about new functions like
CORREL(), akin to what I said before about learning new CLI applications; I fundamentally learn how to create and edit spreadsheets more quickly. In Impress, I still learn how to make presentations more appealing, more readable, etc. Basically things that aren’t just rote memorization of gadgets that I could look up at any time. That’s what sets it apart to me – the fact that anything I don’t already know about the Linux terminal is present in readily available reference material and better off not memorized.
This is elitist bullshit that isn’t reflected in the real world.
It truly is. They are literally just doing the infinite abstraction argument where they pretend only the level of abstraction they’re at is valid, when I could easily say that they don’t really know how to use a computer if they can’t compile their own C Code or program directly in assembly.
I took a single-semester Linux course and had the terminal down pat.
And this is where I stop reading.
EDIT: Seriously guys, this statement reminds me of when the little girl in the original Jurassic Park is like “this is unix, I know this” and then starts flying around the park virtually using “Unix” 3D style.
This is such elitist nonsense. What specialty tricks do you think an every day user would possibly need to know that they couldn’t learn in a single semester.
Dude, bash is a whole language.
I’ve been using shells for over twenty years and I still pick up new tricks.
The most interesting part of this comment is that you could not answer the question, and instead needed to deflect, and answer a question that wasn’t asked.
This just goes to show that my question was indeed an on point criticism of the previous take.
Well yeah, because I did. What else is there? I knew how to do everything I would ever need to do in the Linux command line. Anything I need to do beyond fundamental interactions, what else do I need to know besides how to 1) find a relevant CLI application and 2) read the man page to write a command? I even knew how to write basic shell scripts, which I would argue goes beyond “using the command line” and strays into “using a scripting language”. After that course, I never struggled with the Linux CLI because it taught me how to reason about it; is there a problem with that statement?
Is the timeframe and the setting the problem? Because I’m talking about going from never having used Linux or a CLI to being fluent with both, and the class was still a blowoff.
Well, I’ll settle for basic computer literacy as I still run into college students without a working knowledge of file systems… buuuut one would argue it’s worth covering the basic building blocks of how all this works.
I’ve heard similar arguments for teaching people the fundamentals of how data works too, as we have data harvested from us at alarming rates and knowledge is power.
I’m a designer, I don’t know a single designer - from school or work - who doesn’t know what the terminal is. Sure I don’t really know how to use it but that’s because I grew up on Win 7 and later, where GUIs ruled. Most designers are pretty tech literate, it’s half the difference between us and fine arts folk.
