The Real Reason Linux Users Love The Command Line

[Bayu TNI]

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.
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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?
That was nearly 3 years ago, and my stance has gradually shifted under the weight of experience. But my early computing days bear a striking resemblance to Oliver '0lzi' Kelly’s:
“I spent 20 years using Windows, and the only time that stands out from when I used the command line was to ping an IP address or google.com to test and diagnose network issues. In Linux I use it all the time, and I don’t even second guess it.”