The Real Reason Linux Users Love The Command Line

Jason Evangelho
Linux For Everyone
Published in
3 min readDec 18, 2020

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When I started my own Linux journey, I was adamant about not even touching a terminal window. As if the command line was this diseased, disgusting thing.

“If I can’t do it with a GUI then I’m not even interested in this distro!” I’d say stubbornly.

CoolRetroTerm on Raspberry Pi | Screenshot by Jason Evangelho

I’d get visibly upset when stumbling across all these tutorials online that use command line instructions when far easier (in my eyes) graphical approaches exist.

Why on earth were these guys showing us how to make an application executable using the command line? Why not just find it in your file manager, right click it, select “properties,” go to the permissions tab, and check the appropriate box to make it executable?

That seemed more intuitive… to me. Or maybe it was just what felt “correct” after two decades of Windows.

Making a bootable USB stick with the command line? Launching a terminal window to install a driver or encode a video with ffmpeg? ARE YOU INSANE?

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Jason Evangelho
Linux For Everyone

Technology addict, Linux enthusiast, musician, and writer. Currently reviving my imagination from a coma. Also an American in Croatia.