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?

Today’s “Newbie Tip” is learning some basics about the “Command Line Interface” or as it’s mostly referred to, “Command Line”. The command line gives the user the ability to interact with the operating system by typing via a text terminal.

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.

If you work on Linux you’ll know that the command line is the way to go (in some cases at least). If you are in GUI mode than you can access the command line via the Terminal. Here are some applications/utilities that will transform your command line experience.

Linux the cool factor

As I wrote in my last post, I think Linux is not perceived as cool by enough people.
While Linux is definitely very cool!

Last time I mentioned compiz, which gave very different responses. Some people think it's great others hate it. Today I'll throw in something completely different.

Next thing

The next thing that I think makes Linux cool, is the command line!

In the last article I talked about simple command pipelines, one of the features that makes the Linux command line so powerful and so worth learning. So if you want to get comfortable using the command line, here are some tips that will make it a lot easier.

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.

A very quick command line tip today, for users of pretty much any Unix-based operating system, including Linux distributions. When you're looking up information on a certain web site or domain name, you might be used to using whois functions on websites such as to see who owns a domain.

Locating files that you know exist, but you can’t remember where they are can be frustrating. There are a handful of GUI-based search tools for Linux and Unix, but if you prefer to work in the command line, or don’t have one of these special apps installed, you can often fall back on command line tool locate.