this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Do you know how everything in your house works? How to repair everything? No right?
Would you be brave enough to mess with the grounding of your house, or the AC or the heaters, the washing machine, the doors? Not eveyone wants mess with every (subsystem) thing in their house/live"
Most of the people I know want their PC to work and if somwthing goes wrong they just send it to repair or ask somebody else to fix it, they don't wanna do it themselves, which I find normal, they have little to no interesting in PCs, and that is compleatly fine.
And before someone says "Yeah, but the computer won't kill you if you fuck up the fixing or messing, let me tell you, a "sudo rm -r" or "sudo chown -R" can fuck you system BAR, making you loose important data and info.
-...But refugee -I hear you about to type-, they SHOULD have 10921 back-ups in atleast 2542 independent locations. Yo, they don't wanna even see the terminal, and you want them to interest themselves for data integrity and redundacy? Come on.
I didn't say you have to know everything, just like I don't know everything in my house and how it works, but I do know how to do basic repairs so I don't pay loads of money for a guy to come and unclog a drain. I know how to reset my circuit breakers, how to change a fuse, how to change a lightbulb.
That's what the terminal is. No one here is telling you to write a bootloader in assembly or meticulously study kernel environment parameters. No one advocating for basic knowledge of a terminal likely has knowledge on subnet masks, compilers, or other low level systems that a modern Linux abstracts for you.
But! I know how to update my packages from a terminal. I know how to install a package outside of a repository, or one that's not listed on my graphical package manager. I know how to export an environment variable to get my software to work how it should.
That's what "knowing the terminal" gives you. It's a basic skill that unlocks you from being a mere "user" of a system to an owner of a system. I don't think everyone will ever need the terminal, but there are people who are replying to me that seem to have a genuine fear that people have knowledge of their computers in a meaningful way.
Knowledge is autonomy for whatever you do, and there's a reason why the most profitable of systems are the very systems that are locked down abstracted and "user friendly" in all ways that harm a user's rights and freedoms.