Different jobs require different tools. You seem to be asserting that GUIs are better because most people use GUIs. You’re using correlation data to infer a causative explanation. It would be like saying hammers are better than jack-hammers because more people use hammers.
Well, isn’t the thread title what is better? GUI or console?
I don’t even judge really. I have a look at the facts. And fact is that the UI is in most cases graphical nowadays.
Historically the UI of a personal computer was console. Dos was console. Unix was console. And you used those tools for the same things that you do by a graphical UI now. So it’s not really hammer vs jackhammer. But old hammer vs new hammer. Dos was console. Windows is graphical UI. And the graphical approach succeeded at the desktop over console. Commandline is rarely used anymore.
What are you using root for?
I use root where i need root. Last time i wanted to edit a apache config.
but this is not intended to be a Linux Vs Windows discussion. Start another thread for that. This is for the pros and cons and differences between writing what you want to do and clicking what you want to do.
Linux is the only OS left where you have to use the console regularly for normal work. This kind of normal work where you can use the graphical UI in Windows. So this discussion is hard to divide
To repeat myself, the normal users have long voted with their feet what they prefer. So it stays a mystery for me why nearly all Linux distibutions still wants the users to work with console for some tasks when there is a graphical desktop available. To stay with my example with the apache config, why not a right click menu with an entry for edit as root? Like the run as admin item in Windows. It simply makes me scratch my head.
Fortunately, on an operating system like one of the Linux distributions or Mac OS, users have the ability (should they desire it) to use both the graphical interface and the command line… switching between the two based on what’s most appropriate for the task at hand.
Also Windows has a commandline. Just type in cmd. So you could also use it here when you want. But the command line at Windows is not longer needed for normal work. A windows user will most likely never even notice that there is a command line available. You can completely work with the graphical UI.
Same goes for most configs that require root. You can do them from GUI without having to be root to start them. If a program requires root in Ubuntu, it’ll ask you when you start it.
Linux requires root rights for stuff like editing configs. And at Debian and Ubuntu desktop this means to start the console. There is no right click menu to open a config as root, and you cannot log in to the desktop as root. Trapped. No choice but to use the console.
In terms of speed and efficiency for completing certain tasks, the command line can definitely be a more appropriate tool than a graphical interface. However, the large population of computer users have decided that they’re unwilling to learn how to work from a terminal window
Some things may really work faster when you look at the isolated task. But you cannot look at it in the isolated manner like hey, look, this command line command is much faster than to click me through a graphical menu. Learning time is also working time. Fixing typoes is also working time.
And the more complex the things becomes, the better is a graphical solution suited. You will not edit your mysql database at the console anymore. You will use Phpmyadmin or similar tools. You will also rarely setup your firewall at the console, you will use a graphical firewall builder for that. And so on. Because complexity is easier to handle in a graphical way. And this were examples from the area where the console is still regularly used, by server admins.
It’s also not that the people are unwilling to learn. You assume with that that the graphical UI is the weaker solution, and that the users just doesn’t want to learn the better solution because they are lazy. But it’s the other way around. It’s the better solution for most of the users. They voted that one with their feet already.
So the question is not longer what is better. The question is, why is the graphical approach better for most users? This has its reasons.
The graphical UI provides the easier and faster way to work with in nearly all cases. A click will always be faster and easier than typing letters. A button has a tooltip too. And tells you, hey, i am a tool. Use me. So why should a user bother to keep in memory what is what, why learn a special command at a command line tool when he can do the same with one single click at a button?
Overall, in the whole, it’s the mix of faster, easier and more convenient that makes the work with a graphical UI better. Even when this means to have some special isolated tasks that are a bit slower than at the console. Those rare tasks where the console is really faster is not worth it to learn the work with the console really when you don’t need it like for a server. Especially when the same task in the graphical UI may be a bit slower, but is more convenient. And that’s in my opinion the reason why we have Windows at the desktop now, and not longer Dos.