Re: terminal only for two weeks

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024, Retrograde wrote:

From the «text is good enough» department:
Title: Using (only) a Linux terminal for my personal computing in 2024
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2024 22:13:32 +0000
Link: https://www.osnews.com/story/141194/using-only-a-linux-terminal-for-my-personal-computing-in-2024/
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A month and a bit ago, I wondered if I could cope with a terminal-only
computer[1].
[…]
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The only way to really find out was to give it a go.
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My goal was to see what it was like to use a terminal-only computer for my
personal computing for two weeks, and more if I fancied it.
↫ Neil’s blog[2]
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I tried to do this too, once.
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Once.
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Doing everything from the terminal just isn’t viable for me, mostly because I
didn’t grow up with it. Our family’s first computer ran MS-DOS (with a Windows
3.1 installation we never used), and I’m pretty sure the experience of using
MS-DOS as my first CLI ruined me for life. My mental model for computing didn’t
start forming properly until Windows 95 came out, and as such, computing is
inherently graphical for me, and no matter how many amazing CLI and TUI
applications are out there – and there are many, many amazing ones – my brain
just isn’t compatible with it.
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There are a few tasks I prefer doing with the command line, like updating my
computers or editing system files using Nano, but for everything else I’m just
faster and more comfortable with a graphical user interface. This comes down to
not knowing most commands by heart, and often not even knowing the options and
flags for the most basic of commands, meaning even very basic operations that
people comfortable using the command line do without even thinking, take me
ages.
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I’m glad any modern Linux distribution – I use Fedora KDE on all my computers –
offers both paths for almost anything you could do on your computer, and unless
I specifically opt to do so, I literally – literally literally – never have to
touch the command line.
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Links:
[1]: https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/10/could-i-cope-with-a-terminal-only-computer/ (link)
[2]: https://neilzone.co.uk/2024/11/using-only-a-linux-terminal-for-my-personal-computing-in-2024/ (link)
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Fascinating experiment. I would not be able to do it. I need a browser to run my business, manage my finances etc. so terminal only, while nice, would be very difficult without some serious programming and hacking around problems.