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Linux tips
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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Is it? I usually chain names of buttons or something like that:
File - Create - From templates
One simple command vs:
Go to your start menu
Search for program name
Click on it
Scroll down about half way
Click the
Enter
Click the
Click the in the popup
And if that's done in Gnome, does it help a KDE user, Xfce, Mate? I think not. And that's if the gui handles the problem at all.
Of course, the command comes with an explanation of what it does.
One "simple" command that could do anything including killing their entire PC vs detailed instructions of something they can follow and understand, especially if you include pictures.
If you want people in your community, treat them with respect.
Trolls, who like to corrupt people's data, exist. A GUI procedure is almost always safer.
Tell me how to gather this information from the GUI. Plasma for preference please.
I don't use Plasma, but in Mint Xfce, you click:
which includes all this and USB and Repos sections.
If your mouse/touchpad is broken, then doing it with a keyboard only may be a bit tricky for a newbie, because you have the Shift+Tab to get to the Copy button:
While CLI is superior in many ways, sometimes even for newbies, I've found that for them GUIs are usually much easier and safer. I recently struggled to get someone to type spaces in the correct places in a terminal, over the phone.
Not that I particularly want to get involved—I do also like
inxi—but you can launch Info Center (kinfocenter) fromkrunner, the application menu, or under About this System in System Settings to get a good amount of this information and more.Info Center is good, but getting the information into a forum post isn't easy. With inxi, it's just copy and paste. Just one simple example where the terminal is better.
I don't know, it isn't that hard for me to help others with UI. 🤷
What if the person you're helping has a different UI language? Or when buttons get hidden based on available screen space? Or when you need to get an older person to use a dropdown menu with hover and click options?
Sure it's doable, but it's so much easier to just copy and paste a command. Of course, whenever I tell someone to do something like this, it comes with a lot of warnings about the shell. If they're close enough I just tell them to never run a random command without consulting me first.
Very often you want the other person to learn (memorize) the way to do something.
And most of the time that person (in my experience) is an elder being or something, so they prefer UI and I don't want to die on a hill of making them relearn their ways.
That's nice, right until you have to troubleshoot why the other person is having difficulty following the instructions. My not-entirely-but-still-mostly-strawman scenario (specifically with the RPi Imager) where that approach fails:
I had to have this conversation with myself. Conducting it over an internet forum with a stranger of questionable technical skills is my definition of hell.