I am personally a strong advocate of using the Command Line. However, I am coming from a more tech type of situation than some others do. For the 'average" user however, is the Command Line relevant to everyday use?

I thought it would be useful to break away from all the GUI-goodness and offer up a few command line tips and tricks. Why? No matter how powerful, user-friendly, and modern the Linux desktop becomes, there may come a time when you want to step up your game and get down and dirty with the command line interface.

Hollywood movies often have a tech geek entering commands and doing amazing things. While it may not be that easy to hack into public transport systems or or control the world like Eagle Eye, the command line is certainly a geeks playground.

Want to be faster at the Linux command line interface? Since most Linux distributions provide Bash as the default CLI, here are some Bash tricks that will help cut down the amount of typing needed to execute commands. Feel free to comment and share your own speed tricks.

A simple introduction to the command line. Read it if you want to break through your fear of the command line!

I use the Linux command line extensively, both on my local machine or when I’m connected to a remote server. There are some keyboard shortcuts that I want to share with you which have made my life on BASH a lot easier. I have not come across too many books that have documented these shortcuts and I think they are quite important to improve your productivity while on the command line.

I started learning computers back when DOS was all that was available to me, so I was comfortable with the command line. When Windows 95 was released my command line usage dropped considerably because there simply wasn't the "need" for it that there once was. I've gone from using the command line all the time to using it very seldom because GUI's were getting better and becoming more wide spread.

Anyone that has been reading these tips for any length of time knows that I am a command-line guy. It’s faster, more efficient, and more powerful. Sure, a nice GUI is great to look at, but to really get things done, give me the CLI any day. Even to this day I still use a text-mode e-mail client (Mutt) and text-mode IRC client (Irssi).

Good command line tools are more important than ever and not just a relict of ancient times in comparison to RIA or GUI applications. Experienced system administrators appreciate their power. The question is how can we make command line tools smarter and more powerful than today?