Currently looking for a distro that is CLI based but has some nice user-friendly features. Basically I have an old netbook that I use as a typewriter and nothing more. I don't need X at all on it, since I prefer the speed of command line, but I do get sick of typing in pages of commands to do simple things like mount an SD card or USB drive or to get my wifi connected. Any distros out there that are geared solely toward CLI but have a lot of that stuff set up to be as easy as possible?

Thanks!

I have an Arch laptop that I use for writing (vim if you must know.) I use the Zsh shell. I write scripts for anything that I need often(wifi etc) and this setup works well for me.

does Arch auto-mount flash media, have easy networking setup, etc? I love using a CLI but after having fought with Debian for the last day and a half just to get my network working and to be able to mount a flash drive (still have to go through a bunch of commands to do it) I'm just sick of it. The computer doesn't have to be able to do much:

-run Wordgrinder (only decent word processor I could find for CLI Linux)
-connect to wifi (easily) when I'm at a coffee shop so I can look up info using Lynx or W3M
-auto-mount a flash drive so that I can easily back up my writing (or I'd settle for some kind of auto-backup solution to OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox that would automatically update every few minutes)

Yep - automounts using Udisks. (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Udisks)

Wifi is easy - use wifi-menu... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=betuunCBNUA)

There is some initial setup obviously - but once you have it all configured, it does its thing. I haven't done anything to my laptop except upgrade (pacmant -Syu) once a month. No problems. Able to go anywhere and use wifi, and my usb drives mount themselves to /mnt/

Good luck. Remember that Arch has one of the best wiki's out there as far as documentation goes.

any idea if Arch has support for the Atheros 9271? I'd really hate to install it and then have to spend an entire day trying to get the wifi working. The netbook has a built in Broadcom (not sure of model # offhand, but it's a Dell Mini 10) that I know SOME Linux distros (Ubuntu for instance) will pick up and work with but I didn't have any luck under Debian.

Dont install it. Burn it to a CD and live boot from it. Test it. If it works - you are good. If not, you've only spent a few minutes testing. Never test a distro by installing directly, when that distro offers a bootable live CD for testing -before- committing to installing.

Okay, I managed to get Arch installed but it is IMPOSSIBLE to join the forums to get help. You have to type in some insanely long command into your terminal and then it doesn't work because I'm not connected to the network! ridiculous!

I had network (ethernet) during install but after reboot I have NOTHING. Just refuses to connect to the internet, can't even ping the modem.

So without a way to ask for help, since Arch has to be so insane in their forum security, I'm stuck. Arch is out

For Debian, all you need to do to get networking and everything else working is to add the non-free and contrib repositories to your sources.list, update, and install the necessary packages. Really, the easy way is to use the network install, which should enable networking automatically, and don't install a desktop environment. But I'd add the non-free and contrib repos anyway. Debian is really an easy install, and absolutely stable.

If you want a good CLI distribution, try Slackware. It simply works. It has UI but only if you want to use it, otherwise Slackware defaults to command line.

for JUST a text only ( no X11)
Debian 7.8 or Centos 6.7 text install
or as above Slackware

you can use Vi right
vi and w3m
my above post
http://6.t.imgbox.com/9TmnaLEE.jpg
http://imgbox.com/9TmnaLEE

Slackware +1