Over at TuxRadar, a Linux site as you could guess from the name, they’ve been debating for some time the question of whether or not the Linux shell is obsolete. The argument really got kicked off with this comment: “The command line is a crusty, old-fashioned way to interact with a computer, made obsolete by GUIs, but a small hardcore of people who refuse to move on still use it to perform arcane tasks that the majority of more enlightened users never need to perform. Mostly these tasks need to be performed in this way because of defects and omissions in current GUIs.”
Oh please. For most users most of the time you’ll no more need to use Linux shell commands, than you’ll need to know how to change your oil to drive your car. But, sometimes, and here’s the point, sometimes, you do need to change your oil.