Billie Walsh said the following on 11/20/2012 09:23 AM:
The majority of the time when a Noob asks a question the first thing is , "in a terminal............" At that point you have just ruined the Noob's Linux experience. Thats why when someone mentions Linux to a Noob they come back with, "That's only for nerds and geeks." That's why Linux has the reputation of being hard [ impossible ] to use.
That's an unfair comment for at least two reasons that I can see. The first is that there is a difference between "user" and 'admin" questions. many of the questions asked here are of the 'admin' level rather than the user level, and for many admin functions the CLI is simpler, faster, clearer and often there is no GUI equivalent. Its not that we don't address the GUI. We talk of 'yast' and 'systemsettings' often and I don't know the CLI equivalents for many of those. And when things break, you simply can't use the GUI. In my databaseOfDotSigQuotes I have That's what I love about GUIs: They make simple tasks easier, and complex tasks impossible. -- John William Chambless The GUI is the result of the GUI designer's choices as to what gets put in the GUI. It may not cover all of the capabilities of the CLI equivalent. it also assumes the underlying stuff works properly; if its broken or there is an error you are SOL. If the config file is screwed then its back to the editor and text mode. Sorry, no other way. The second is about how you explain things. Its easier to give the CLI command that go though the various GUI. Heck, even with GUI you may still have a lot of text to fill in! I think you are being unfair. I'd even go further. There are some things that are very clearly GUI. I use GIMP for photo editing. But occasionally I have to write or edit a script. While I may use a gui-style editor (gvim for example) I'm still dealing with a command script. If I ask on a relevant forum about that I will get a reply that describes a text-mode input. Never mind that GIMP is a purely GUI _user_ interface, I'm doing _admin_ stuff. Many things are text-under-the-hood even if the user only sees the 'graphical' end of things. XML representations are getting pervasive in this. If your XML gets screwed up then your GUI fails, and the recourse is to use a text editor to fix it. But that is an _admin_ function not and end _user_ function. -- "Rules are often an excuse to ignore compassion." -- Frank Herbert -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org