Of course.
But why would you want to!?
The short answer is yes. But the interesting part - and I’m talking from personal experience - is that from the moment you realize just how easy and powerful using the console is, you learn how to use it.
And it does not mean you are going to turn into a full on expert or geek, tinkering around the console. You just learn a few simple commands that enable you to do something (or somethings) quicker, easier and cleaner than going through a GUI.
Can you? Yes. Should you? No.
For many people it’s not quicker or easier. If they’ve not used CLI before, they’d need to learn multiple new things. Going to a Web browser for help every time, before doing something is not quick. Memorising precise command strings that mean nothing to the user, is not easy for many either. For them it’s bad usability.
And even if you did manage to do something 2 years ago, you can’t remember how to do it today. Do you really want up go down that same rabbit hole again? Spending 5 minutes reading stuff and running a single command takes a lot more time than 15 mouse clicks.
I’ve always thought GUIs felt more like doing things by hand and CLIs felt more like having the computer do it for you. Like if you want to do some complicated task that requires multiple programs and lots of menus using a GUI, it’s easy the first time, but once you need to do it a second time you have to do it all over again by hand. But if you do it from the command line, while it might be harder the first time, subsequent times are zero effort because you can just run the exact same commands again from your history or combine them into one or a script to make it even easier.
Agreed. I’m not super computer geeky compared to this website. A bunch of people here would probably not even consider me techy.
That said, I hated the command line and would actively avoid it as often as possible. Once I started using it (just to paste code from tutorials) and then later to cd into folders so I can run an old game .exe with WINE, and then to straight up command line tools for converting .bin and .cue files into workable ISOs (also for old games), I started seeing with the command line is so sick.
I’m converted. It’s great. It’s not as spooky as it looks. Make the background 50% transparent.
I feel like I only use ls, cd and apt update & apt upgrade. Other commands are for when e.g. hardware malfunctions.
Yeah, right.
Now please follow the official instructions to installed docker and compose on Ubuntu.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/#installation-methods
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/#manage-docker-as-a-non-root-user
How do I follow those instructions without the commandline?
Based on my experience, I think you can. Many distros nowadays offer ways to do things without the use of the terminal. In Linux Mint, for example, you can rely solely on the Update Manager to update all installed applications and modules rather than using the terminal. You can also uninstall apps by right-clicking on them in the Menu and selecting the uninstall option. And finally, if you want to move files around, even to some locations that require root, you can do that using the File Explorer app (e.g. Nemo).
That being said, when I started on my Linux journey, I made it a point to actually learn some terminal commands, because I saw it as an important feature in Linux and a good skill to possess.
