A friendly poll...

It seems that most hardcore Linux users like to get their hands dirty in a terminal window rather than relying too much on graphical tools. I'm wondering... how far do you take it?

1. Do you use a graphical file manager/browser or do everything from the command line? If you're moving/copying several files involving long pathnames and filenames, do you type everything out or "cheat" and use an app in X?

2. For the developers out there, when editing code do you use a graphical editor with nice syntax highlighting or do you prefer command-line editors.

3. And finally, speaking of command-line editors... does anyone really use vi/vim for all text editing? I understand the importance of knowing how to use it in case you're on a machine that doesn't have the more user-friendly editors, but it seems like it just takes too long to accomplish a task that way (what with jumping back and forth to the esc button, etc.).

1) It depends on what I'm doing, so I use both... But my KDE always has several terms open I still tend to install rpms and edit configs and many thing at CLI level. But I also do a lot with filemanagers. Some things are easier one way and others are easier the other way... With auto completion the long filenames don't matter much and I hit Tab a lot I use wget, ps aux and kill and rpm and jed/vi, etc...

2) Don't code much these days but the little I've done has bee both in CLI and gui.

3) I found jed years ago and it's the first thing I add to all my installs I tend to use vi when I have to - it's all I got on the smoothie box I don't mind vi tho. I'm just more used to jed and find it quicker.

1) always in command line. i just dont see the point of a file manager draw pictures of your files for you. tab completion takes care of long filenames. its a lot faster once you get used to it.

2) vim.

3) vim. once you get used to it, editing with vim is a lot faster than an "easy" text editor.

I should say one of the reasons I use a guio= filemanager rather than cli would be for something like digital photos. In KDE i get a preview thumnail of each pix, so then I easily can pick the ones I want to copy or archive or whatever. But if I'm shifting whole directories around I might use cli, depending on my mood

Interesting poll. I'll bite.

1) Yup, I do all file moving and application launching from a terminal (tab completion is a beautiful thing, as is the {a, b, c} syntax in Bash). I used to be a diehard KDE (and Konqueror) fan, but i recently bought a 500MHz laptop, and installed Fluxbox, and ever since I've been using the command line for most things (KDE and Gnome both take a long time to start on machines as slow as my laptop). When you're dealing with sequentially numbered Kismet dumps and large numbers of similarly named files, the shell is much faster than a GUI file manager. Scripting is also essential to get any repetitive work done fast. The file previews are useful in Konqueror, though, as is the ability to create image galleries. I use kuickshow to view photos (PgUp and PgDn / mouse wheel to move between images in the same directory. Nice).

2) I use Emacs for coding (Java and shell mostly), and I'm usually in Fluxbox, so I suppose I'm half way between GUI and text. I use the Emacs navigation keys almost exclusively (Ctrl-N, Ctrl-P etc) instead ofthe mouse, so it's pretty much the same experience as being in text mode. Emacs does highlight syntax for me in colour though.

3) I also use Emacs for all text (and someties non-text) editing. Emacs can deal with displaying binary data without falling over, and I find the commands a lot faster to use than Vi's. (No constant switching modes with esc). I use my Caps-lock key as a Control key, which makes life a lot easier on the fingers using the Emacs commands. The ability to have multiple files open and displayed in Emacs is great too; I don't know if this is possible in Vi.

After a while not using GUI tools all the time, you start to become very efficient on the command line. Installing Fluxbox, and using the command line for most things has actually enhanced my Linux experience a lot - the sed, awk and grep utilities are really essential once you know how to wield them. I don't really miss GUI tools and file browsers on my newly aquired old laptop, and I'm actually considering using Fluxbox as my desktop on my main machine too. I'll keep KDE around to impress the Linux doubters, though.

Dave

I'm not a guru, or even hardcore...wasn't going to post until I read #3. I use Vim for everything text. It's better than anything else I've tried, IMO.

As far as using commandline, I'm sorta halfway between that and GUI. I prefer having an X window manager running because I think browsing the web with links is crap, and I use Gimp a lot. But for a lot of other tasks I prefer commands, or at least terminal-based applications (like mc, mpg321, dekagen, bitchx, mutt, etc)

I do not use any sort of GUI on my Linux machines. I run Linux exclusively on servers, and I find a GUI just gets in the way more than anything.

Yep. I don't use a gui when I'm working on my printer / mp3 server either I just telnet in and do what I have to do... There's not a lot of point on a server... Mind you the smoothie box has a webadmin so the kids can connect to the web easily...

Of course on the main box I haven't used cli to browse the web since the old days (much) and I haven't found a cli gimp replacement

OK. I really need to lock up my desktop to protect it from my kids.
In the KDE there is a button on the tastbar. What is the command for it? Can I lock my screen from fluxbox?
This is needed for the survival of this system - there are plenty of little hazards on and under the table.

1. All file manipulation is from command line.

2. Not a developer but I do all my scripts in VI.

3. And yes if I am on a Linux box I use vi unless I'm doing something where it needs text formatting. Biggest problem is when you go to a GUI word processor and keep trying to hit ESC. You can type a lot faster when one hand isn't on a mouse...

1) command line, it's a LOT LOT quicker.

2) wuss here... Anjuta for big stuff.

3) not a clue how to use vi.. i use pico.

I do these things in an xterminal, and I make lots of
use of tab-expansion and bash-automated-completion
(for instance for scp-ing stuff to other hosts)...

I use emacs in both the shell and the GUI, with syntax-highlighting
in both environments ;)

I know the basics of vi (enough to do crontab :}) but
can't stand it, I REALLY use emacs for all editing. My CV,
for instance, is hand-coded HTML, done in Emacs ... as
for the "seems like it just takes too long" I'd probably
have to say that I'm almost certain that I can beat you
to most tasks when you use the mouse ;)
And since someone mentioned the term word processor:

Cheers,
Tink

1) on my server i dont have gui command line only
To the desktop i try to use as much i can command line

2) GUI ofcourse [kdevelop or borland builder]

3) vim rulez! very fast if you can remember the shortcuts!

That's great tink . Looks like one of those Slack fortunes to me.

1.mainly command line with wildcards of course
2.i prefer syntax highlighting coding is hard enough :-P
3. i use vi and vim alot when admining servers and if x-server isnt up. Very useful to know. I wouldnt choose it for programming though. VI=virtually impossible.