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Can You Use Linux Without the Terminal? (How to Geek article)
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this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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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 have a theory that the crowd of people who learned computers or iPads etc from GUIs only, they have a harder time with terminal. Those who used DOS a lot find it to be a happy space.
That is not necessarily true
I'm not saying they can't overcome it or that it is universal. It's just a theory I have based on early observations.
Now, it does make sense that a GUI only person would have to play catch up compared to a person the same age who has a decade of exposure to using a terminal if they're going to code in a terminal. It's just different mindsets and workflows.
At my work the younger coders who say they prefer GUI coding (and are terminal avoidant) seem to have more trouble and their debugging methods have many more steps and take longer. Many times they run everything in Jupyter notebooks and avoid running the processes in terminal at all. This is a problem if they put off end to end testing until the very last moment instead of testing incrementally.
Also, for context, this is to create production level Python code which is to be deployed on a terminal only server.
I'd want to make a measurable experiment with a larger sample size to confirm this theory though, as the systems are complex enough there are many possible reasons for these patterns. I'm just very aware these days of that moment of hesitance, like a deer in headlights, when some people have to open the terminal to solve their problem.
I don't think it's a theory rather than an objective fact. A lot of "traditional" computer skills have almost totally gone extinct because consumer devices are designed to hide as many system features from you as possible.
The saving grace is that even being raised without it, you end up needing these skills to become a developer of any decent calibre. That gives at least some route for these skills to transfer to new generations.