this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I get it. Every single other application a GUI user has used in their life: Ctrl-C = copy, and Ctrl-Z = undo. Open the terminal, and now Ctrl-C is an interupt, and Ctrl-Z is like a pause. Every terminal emulator has the option to change these keymappings. But doing that has a bunch of consequences once you start running more than basic file operations and nano. I think this is usually the first big hurdle to get over. It's muscle memory that needs to be suppressed.
And then there's the documentation aspect. With a GUI, you can visually look around to see what can be done in a program. With the CLI, there's options that you just kinda have to know. There's -h or --help, then there's the man pages. But even just navigating the man pages brings up the previous problem of unfamiliar/unintuitive keybindings. so you could also install tldr for faster help, but the vast majority of the time, it'll be faster to just search online.
All that being said, I prefer the CLI for pretty much everything, and think it would be interesting if there was a sort of pedagogical distro to teach the command line. Imagine a file browser that displays the underlying utilities/commands being used. Like, when you open your home folder maybe there's a line showing 'ls -al /home/me | grep [whatever params to get the info being displayed]'. Or, when you go into the settings, it shows you the specific text files being edited for each option. Something that just exposes the inner workings a little more so that people can learn what they're actually doing as they're using the GUI