Why Use a Command Line Instead of a GUI?

These are the slides for my talk on 3 November 1999 at the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group.

Summary: As Linux gets GUI-er, you might be surprised at how much faster and more powerful the plain old command line (with a % or $ prompt) can be in many cases. When should you type instead of clicking?

Note: the slides are formatted for a Web browser 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels high. They have some links, but the links won't be underlined (if your browser understands styles).

Another note: If you look inside the HTML files ("view source"), there are HTML comments with extra information for my talk. Look for <!-- at the left margin.

You can get all these slides as a gzipped tar-format archive: svlug_19991103.tar.gz.

  1. Why Use a Command Line Instead of a GUI? (Intro)
  2. Jerry Peek
  3. Overview
  4. Main Issues
  5. Shells Handle Command Lines
  6. History Substitutions: Overview
  7. History Substitution: Examples #1
  8. History Substitution: Examples #2
  9. String Expansion (Curly Braces)
  10. Command Substitution
  11. Perl/etc. on the Command Line
  12. Shell Variables, Loops
  13. UNIX Filters and Pipes
  14. Shell Scripts, Aliases, Functions
  15. Email in the UNIX style: MH
  16. Summary

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