Not warming-up to Terminal. Its foreign-ness doesn't recede.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7919481

by hackaflocka • 12 years ago

2 2 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've worked a little with Terminal (via a Mac). Set up Linux boxes. Configured remote hosts. Even an Amazon EC2 instance. Basic, minor web hosting stuff.

However, I'm just not warming-up to the Command Line. I found the experience of using Vi/Vim ghastly <shudder>. I grew up with the GUI / Mouse Cursor / Menu paradigm, and the foreign-ness of Terminal just won't recede.

I've Googled around and found some GUI-oriented tools that replace some of the functionality of the Terminal.

I was hoping y'all could chip-in with suggestions. I'm looking for resources that:

1) offer GUI-oriented alternatives to achieve the tasks that one would usually use the Terminal to do.

2) could help me warm up to Terminal. Exercises, tutorials, philosophical lectures, 12-step program, anything.

Thanks.

eximius2• 12 years ago

1. How long have you been using command line?

2. So don't use Vi/Vim (or Emac for that matter). I always use graphical editors unless I'm on a remote host or just wanna make a real quick edit in which case I use nano. It is, by far, simpler and much easier to use.

3. Help? ... Really, depending on how long you've been using it, the best way is practice. Try doing an Arch Linux install or an LFS install. Don't be intimidated by either, they have excellent documentation. Just... use a blank machine so you don't break nothin'. :)

3.5 Alternatives: This is where google needs to come in. What exactly do you need alternatives FOR? Firewall? gufw works. Otherwise... idk, what do you need? If it doesn't exist... you could write one yourself? (that is slightly hardcore though. lol)

eximius2• 12 years ago

I should note that I've been using CLI stuff for... oh, 8 years? I can't really point to a specific date when I got comfortable with it. I just, got better at it and grew more comfortable with basic tasks as I went. Then I'd fuck something up (apt-get remove gnome-common, I believe was my first big mistake... that was a fun night learning to fix that :)) and be less sure of myself, but learn from it and grow.

But you don't have to be totally comfortable. There are a lot of things you need to do from the command line. But you can use GUI as much as possible and script away the rest of the things you're uncomfortable with. It would be pretty easy to write a Python or Go wrapper around some commands and have GUI's with buttons to do common tasks.