1y ago

Ctrl+Alt+T

244 comments

A gui is helpful sometimes, but there’s a lot of cases where there’s no feasible way to make a good gui that does what the terminal can do.
Right tools for the right job.
For example, a gui to move a file from one folder to another is nice - drag and drop.
A gui that finds all files in a directory with a max depth of 2 but excludes logs and runs grep and on matching files extracts the second field of every line in the file? Please just let me write a one liner in bash
- A GUI makes simple things simple.
  A shell makes hard things possible.
  
  Me fucking with hard drives/partitions : GUI please
  Me doing pretty much anything else - Terminal
  
  A CLI makes simple things easy to implement.
- Agreed 👍.
- I don't think I've ever used grep outside of a CLI.
  
  Surely you've used something roughly equivalent like searching a text, be it web page or other document, for a word or filtering a spreadsheet?
  
  Emacs grep lets you run grep, and formats the results in a buffer from where you can then easily visit the files at the match location.
- Disagree. Anything that can be done with terminal can be done with a GUI, you just need to be good at UX. Most programmers I know are pretty bad at UX, and program for themselves, not the user.
  Edit, just to clarify (because I know some of you will feel personally attacked): I’m not saying a GUI may be better, or more efficient than a CLI, I’m just saying that it can be done. And as an example, see 3D shaders in modern programs, that need no code at all and are purely visual. That was unthinkable some years ago.
  
  That's just not true. Not without lots of hand waving.
  In my terminal I can, and pretty much hourly do, combine many programs in chains of input and output to perform specific tasks and get information I need. And that's how these programs are designed to be used. The programmer builds it to do specific things and then the user can combine the program with others in novel and nearly endless ways.
  With a GUI, sometimes that's possible between two programs if you can copy/paste between them but it's much less reusable and a lot more tedious. But usually it's just not possible because they're designed for specific user personas and not as general purpose tools that may be part of a script.
  
  How would you implement piping in GUI?
  Could you show us an example program with a GUI you created for this?
  
  They tried to replace programming languages with drag-and-drop toolkits too. It can be done, but sometimes there's a reason we don't do it.
  
  Most programmers are bad at UX but not nearly as bad as GUI designers are at understanding abstraction.
  
  You can have your GUI do anything a terminal can I guess, but you'd need a few million buttons on that gui where the programmer has anticipated each and every combination of CLI command that you are going to use, encoded that to a button or menu, included text entry boxes for each variable and have bundled every program, application and dependency that has ever existed. Totally possible.
  
  So true!!!

Super + T in my case, but still...
(shhh 🤫, it's actually the win key, but don't let the Linux users hear ya 🤫)
- Super + Enter 😏
  
  Tiling manager crew checking in (I use hyprland btw)
  
  I do ctrl + enter for terminal, with super+enter being used to launch emacs
- ◉⁠‿⁠◉ The Win-key isn't real
  
  For me it's the (custom-ordered) Arch logo key ◉⁠‿⁠◉
- Using it in Linux is a win.. HA!
- Super key? Windows key?
  Say what now?
  Typed on my 1991 ibm model m keyboard
- For me, it's:
  mod + return for terminal
  mod + e for file manager
  mod + r for dmenu/bemenu
  mod + d to switch to the next empty workspace.
  All because I have to work with win10 workstations and using a different, superior shortcut scheme would mess up my muscle memory. Remembering to use shutdown -s -f -t 0 instead of poweroff is difficult enough, and don't even get me started with the audacity to use curl as an alias for Invoke-WebRequest!
  
  Super + D for show desktop in my case.
- "Win"dows key? More like... Lose.....key
- So you're telling me you don't have a bunch of tux stickers?
  
  For the key? No, it's not like I don't know what I'm running 😂.
- I have to confess. I had to look up the shortcut for terminal because I haven't interacted with a Linux desktop in years. I'm a Windows cuck, but not a total imposter bc I've kept a debian server running on my network for years. Whenever something breaks or I do an update (the updates are invariably the cause of the breakage) I manage her with ssh.
  
  It's Ctrl+Alt+T on most DEs... but, that's way too many keys for my taste, so I usually just add Super+T as well (don't remove the default).
- Super + S for a terminal, Super + F for Firefox.
  
  Why S 🤨...
- Super + E here
  By far my most used hotkey in bspwm

Few days ago I was in meeting with two friend, we did something for school, and my screen was shared. At one point I had to type something in Vim so I opened a terminal. They were shocked, confused and said something like "we aren't hackers" (and we are on IT department). More people should know about beauty of CLI.
- Sounds like windows people :D
  
  They use Windows but to be fair there are Windows users who use CLI (I have one friend who does).

I use Super+Return
- I use Meta+Enter :)
  
  I believe I may have found a compromise: ❖+⏎
  
  I use Capslock and it is beautiful.
- I use Super+C

Honestly, I like both. I use whichever provides the biggest productivity multiplier. For example, I can navigate around the filesystem and manipulate text files and code extremely quickly in the terminal. On the flip side, I like to use a gui which allows me to spread 6-12 terminal windows across my multiple displays.
- Yeah, GUIs are great. I especially like having multiple tabs to organize my terminals for different tasks.

The terminal is not fancy, or pretty, and its not that nice to use, but its always available and it gets the job done, just like OPs mum
- My terminal is pretty, fancy, a nice to use. I'm not sure, you might be using the default LXDE terminal or something like that, but some people take the time to make their terminal enjoyable.
  
  I like to use starship.rs
- You can make it fancy and pretty.
  
  That's where the comparison falls apart.

I can’t say I love the terminal, if there’s a GUI for a task I’ll use that but there comes a time in every troubleshooting session where the terminal is just the only way to do something reliably.
I’m not going to lie though, I forget commands constantly so have to search the most basic shit to type in.
- The trick is to build a massive history file and let auto complete use it for parts.
  
  I think only some shells support that.
  It is a nice feature, though.
- Congratulations, you're human.

Mod+Enter

Intellij: Has a modern GUI for Git with code cleanup, import optimization and visualization of changes.
Me: Open terminal, 'git commit -m "wrote code" && git push'. Then realize I forgot to add half of the files, so I make another commit. Then realize I forgot to cleanup bad indents, so I make another commit. Then realize my code doesn't even build, so I make another commit, etc.
- ‘git rebase -i main’
  
  git commit -a --amend
- The only Git GUI that I find actually lets me do the basics in a simple way is GitHub desktop. It allows me to quickly see a diff of the changes, select a few lines or a chunk or all the file, it manages stashes and conflicts for me which is like 98% of my usage. Otherwise I use gitui or the git cli for anything more complex than committing and switching/merging branches.
  
  I’ve started using LazyGit recently and I love it. It runs in CLI and essentially just maps the git commands to keyboard shortcuts. Really easy to use and learn, definitely increased my productivity
- Magit for Emacs is amazing. It helped me understand git.

UI file manager is bloat. Mouse is bloat.
- found the vi(f)m user
- Why have many input device when few device do?
  
  Kids these days are too soft with their avocado toast and their graphical user interfaces
  
  Linux Kevin

It takes a lot of energy to move from the keyboard to the mouse and back constantly, gross.
- I wish the ThinkPad nub was more popular.
  If you want to get better with the nub use it to play StarCraft brood war.
  
  Actually crazy idea: spacebar trackpad.
- But it takes nearly no energy to stay on the mouse.
  
  Yes, that's why I've adapted my workflow to be as mouse-centric as possible.
  Almost feels like I'm using my PC as a smartphone with a keyboard.
  
  I'm sure that works great for doing nothing productive
- Gotta save energy to hit the gym later
- That's what trackpoint is for
  
  https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/appropriate_term.png
- And even less if you can script it.
  
  That’s another nice thing about the CLI: Once you figure out how to do something making a script is usually as easy as getting the commands out of your history.
  I’ve yet to see any GUI automation tool that’s as easy to use.
- I like trackpads because I don't have to move my whole arm to use them.
  
  Bruh, high sensitivity mouse.
  I can twitch and my cousin flies off the screen

Don't forget us dyslexics though! Cli is rough on that, but gui tends to avoid the errors a typo can cause.
I swear, having to copy/paste stuff in terminal to avoid typing the damn commands five times is way less convenient.
I get it, Linux veterans love the terminal because it is efficient and capable. But there's multiple reasons for a gui interface for common tasks, accessibility being the biggest.
- Maybe some of those answers can help you
- A lot of Linux users love the terminal because it's archaic and makes them stand out from the crowd.
  Every thread has people conducting autofellatio by mentioning that one time they opened the terminal in front of Windows users and got called hackers.

Super + T my favorite
- meta + T is for tiling
  meta + enter is for a terminal
  
  It depends, on tiling WM for example tiling is automatic.
- Ah, a man of taste... simple, elegant 🧐.

I prefer Super + Return
- I just feel like a heel using a key with a Windows logo printed on it to do anything of use in Linux.
  
  My keyboard just says Win so I feel like a winner using Linux 😅
  
  Me too. Every once in awhile I have to remind myself that it's not my fault that Lenovo decided to plaster a windows logo on that key. Realistically, that's everybody's key, and it was unfair of Microsoft to do that to us in the first place

Terminal = freedom
- Locking things behind terminal is not.
  
  It's not locking behind terminal. It's just not implementing gui. Which is completely valid since that takes time and effort
  
  People are free to write a GUI for it, assuming it's free software. And you are free to not use a terminal and use any GUI alternatives.
  I mean, locking things behind a GUI definitely isn't freedom. GUIs are very limited compared to most terminal interfaces.
  
  Are there programs that are locked behind a terminal?

As a Linux user of 5 years, I like doing things with the GUI first, and then falling back to terminal if/when shit fucks up. It's such a great tool.
- Which is funny because I'm the other way around. I'll try doing something with the CLI but if it's like a calculation or something and I can't figure it out with awk, etc, I'll defer to a spreadsheet.
- As a Linux user of 10 years, sometimes I don't touch the terminal for months, sometimes I use it every day, depends on what I'm doing. I haven't done a lot of programming this year so I haven't used the terminal a lot; but when playing with my microcontrollers and SBCs I use the terminal almost constantly.
  One thing I will note is that I use the keyboard a lot more than I did when I daily drove Windows. I run my computer by muscle memory a lot more than I used to.

$mod+Return crew wherr you at
- my boi
- We are right there with you my guy

Say I wanted to make a bunch of folders with sequentially numbered names, and the same sub folders in them.
This would take ages with a GUI but you can do it with one line in the terminal

nushell is pretty modern ^and ^written ⁱⁿ ^rust
- This is pretty cool!
  Thanks for the recommendation!
  https://www.jntrnr.com/introducing-nushell/

I'm the kind that never opens a file manager other than to move stuff from one directory to another
- File Manager is the best for bulk renaming too
  
  I mean if you knew the command XD a single for loop should work
  
  I'm a POSIX shell Chad I write shell scripts with parameters in pure POSIX shell for such things /s
- You should try the ranger file manager, thanks to that I almost don't use GUI file managers unless I have a headache
  
  I have heard of it, but never got around to it. I suppose if I get tired of grep and find and shell scripts I'll probably head that way myself. Thanks

Tbf quite often there just isn't a good gui for what I need or for some reason the GUI just doesn't do what it should

I use Arch and I like GUI
- *btw
  
  😂

Super+Return

Shell is amazing for big, batch jobs or a complex thing done in one or two lines.
GUI is great for poking around at options, visualizing your files and file structure and making edits to one or two things at a time. There are a few batch tasks that work great, like the Batch Renamer in MATÉ DE. You get a preview of how your file will change before you apply it and can easily undo it if you fuck up.
- I like this format. My version is:
  A shell is great for things you know how to do well, or do often.
  A GUI is good for things you don't do frequently, or don't know well.
  The thing that keeps me choosing terminal tooling, though, is the ability to script. Everything a GUI can do, a CLI tool could. The inverse is not true. And many of the advantages of GUIs can be provided by a curses interface, so I find it just easier to stay in a terminal most of the time.

I've bound F12 for a quake-style technical. It's beautiful.
- Yakuake. And you can make it transparent, too!
  
  Same with Guake

tmux gang be like: ctrl-b, c
screen boomers be like: ctrl-a, c
- Zellij chads be like: ctrl-p, n
- Screen boomer like me: sets mod key in tmux to ctrl+a

f12 😎

You can cram "VIM mode" into whatever IDE you like, but you'll never do it as well as terminal vim.
- I’ve crammed so much stuff into my vim packages folder it’s better than any IDE.

The window manager is just to fit a load of xterms on the desktop. (12 on my 1st desktop)
- I use personally use tmux for this.
  
  With a 24" QHD screen, text mode would be a tad weird.

Yakuake for the win! In KDE! (Guake for gnome, I believe)
Press and i got 20 tabs with like 35 terminals open
- Quake terminal ❤️❤️❤️

fr, once you get used to the terminal you never leave it
- I got used to it and only use it when I absolutely have to.

Ctrl+Alt+F1

Life is too short for terminal
- Life is terminal
  
  You mean terminal is life

CTRL+ALT+T NAH Mod+Enter is the best

Super + q moment

Wait, I thought the terminal/shell was the modern UI...

I spend more time finding the right buttons to push than creating a command to do it for me.
- Yes, the answer to how do I create a new user and new groups should not be well, what distro and window manager are you using?
  
  Why not?

printscr anyone?

Ubuntu vs Debian

Mod+T

Right click on the icon pinned to the task bar
- and then --> Run as administrator... right? RIGHT!?
  
  No it just opens. Left handed mouse.

Terminal plus Gnu Screen plus vim makes the BEST IDE /for me/.

Ctrl+Alt+F1-F12

Same deal for Windows, PowerShell Is a very powerful tool.
- I'm so used to Unix shells that using PowerShell makes me feel like my fingers are broken.
  
  I feel like PowerShell is what happens when you give a business analyst a set of requirements, who then sends it to the dev team to implement, but then the CEO says that the requirements are dumb and it should be something different.

The main reason Terminals suck is the lack of any guides.
Imagine a CLI interface without commands, just selecting. That would still work everywhere and be easy to maintain, but it would be easy to use.
Or just having cheatsheets available
undefined

cheat(){ curl cheat.sh/$1 }
That makes Terminals useful for everyone
- Cheat sheets are man pages and the -help option on most commands
  Those exist already
  
  They are mostly way too big. Try to get an easy curl command from the man page

Super + T == fish terminal;
Super + Return == zsh terminal
- Dang, I haven't opened my terminal with keyboard shortcuts in years.
  I just click the start menu and have a shortcut there.
- i never understood why people use different shells. i've tried them all but never have the need to swap back and forth especially not during the same day with the same workflow

"modern GUI". yeah. year 2078 surely will be the year of the Linux desktop

Literally the exact opposite for me, lol.

244 comments