[SOLVED] textmode vs graphical

[curiousgirl]

Well, in this forum it goes by the number of posts, not by whether you can install Gentoo or not (and btw coffee lounge posts don't count). I was a member for about two years before they promoted me from "just joined" to "newbie" and I wasn't very pleased as you can imagine!

LOL - yeah but I don't mean on the forum.

I prefer to think of it as not needing to make an effort to maintain a "beginner mind" (since I am one ).

[theNbomr]

As a newbie, I have just been using distro's that install with a graphical interface, but some of the distro's forum members recommend are installed text mode only. How difficult is a text mode install, and is it something a newbie should avoid?

I think you need to clarify, at least for the sake of future readers. Are you asking about the interface of the installer itself, or the OS that it installs?

If the former, I've never really found a big difference. Graphical installer UIs can be more convenient. Usually, installers have a less complete range of hardware support than do the final installed OS. If your video hardware or input devices (mouse/keyboard) isn't supported by the installer, the text mode interface is there as a fallback. I've never seen a text mode installer that didn't allow you to get to the same place that the graphical installer would get to.

I'm a full-on commandline advocate, but that doesn't mean I'm likely to ever install Linux as a text-only installation. Even when I set up a host that I will run headless, I still install the GUI, and then run the host in runlevel 3 (text mode). When I want a commandline, I probably want a bunch of them, and using terminal emulators with good copy & paste support, tabbed windowing, etc is too helpful to give up.

The thing I want in linux more than anything else is a tool that lets me easily find which tab on which konsole window on which desktop contains the session that I'm looking for at any particular instant. All text/commandline stuff, but still making heavy use of a GUI.

--- rod.

[MASONTX]

Like many newbie questions, mine was based on an assumption that proved false. I thought text mode install meant you had to know how to use the command line to install that distro. After this thread corrected my ignorance, I tried a couple of text mode install distros and couldn't really tell any big difference. Thanks for educating me.

[Bemk]

The text mode only seems more difficult than the graphical install to people because it looks more simple. The difficulty however isn't that different from graphical, because in most installers things are done in menus, which work quite simple.