"The fact that day by day, new people try to use free software or free operating systems (like GNU/Linux) is a good thing, and we all know that. [...] Though, this is also something really delicate, where everybody invloved should (IMHO) be careful in what is shown towards the new comers."
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Rhapsody
16 years 25 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago
Marked this one down
I use the Ubuntu Forums a lot, and the reason why instructions are so often given in the context of terminal commands is simple.
The terminal is a universal interface for Linux.
It doesn't matter whether you use GNOME, KDE, Xfce, Enlightenment, AfterStep, Fluxbox, or whatever. The terminal commands can just be copied and pasted without fear of things being screwed up by misunderstandings. The probability of a user getting mixed up as you try to guide them through a GUI method of doing the same thing is much higher.
Even a trained chimp could copy and paste, the GUI is actually harder to work with in this case. The solution is not to struggle trying to explain what various user interface terms mean but to try and get past fear of the terminal.