Recently I decided I wanted to become more knowledgeable about Linux and programming in it. My question is, is it easier to program on Linux through a gui interface or command line?

Along with this question I would like to run a webserver, and a dhcp server possible. Are these programs easier to adminster via a gui or command line interface?

Thank you in advance.

If you could also recommend a Linux distro. I am looking at Suse or Ubuntu.

Hi,
For personal use GUI is great!

And for public use you are wasting resources used for GUI. Wasting time in mouseclicks which a script can do.

Choose whichever situation you are in

writing programs in command line will help you learn the usuage of that particular editor (vi,pico etc.). It won't make much difference as far as programming is concerned.
If we talk about "ease" of use, then ofcourse go for GUI.

not a bad idea.

regards

I'm not sure if you meant to compare programming by editing text files or programming using an IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

If you want to run a website that is offered over the internet, you don't want to install x-windows. The more you install, the more targets a hacker can try to break. Develop the website on a separate host. ( You probably don't want to design a website using vim! - Hee Hee )

For editing configuration files (such as for your DHCP example), using an editor like vim or kate is quick and easy. I like using vim when regex searches or replacements may be needed, but I find kate better for reading code.

Regards!

Working at the CLI is ALWAYS easier---assuming that you can remember a bunch of commands with obscure name and about 1 zillion "switches"---the wonderful little 1-letter codes appended to the commands.
AND--for shell scripting--assuming that you know your regular expressions inside out AND can write incomprehensible code using sed.

Seriously, it depends on what you want to do....When you are programming--ie writing code--you will be using a text editor. Now the difference is more focussed---mouse-driven vs ctrl keys. Again--assuming you know all the codes, the control keys are faster.

cli will atleast be faster than a gui. i use emacs -nw in terminal, but i cant stand the gui. it really depends what you want to do. if you dont want to learn all of the commands youll need to operation from cli, then obviously gui is the way to go. but if you become proficient with he commands the cli will be quicker, and probably more apealling to you.

Some GUI editors have nice features like autocompletion and syntax highlighting, this could be detremental to your learning of programming however since it makes you complacent and dependent. I always find CLI editors FASTER, neccesarily better, but for shell scripting i use the CLI.

Another point, you may one day have to work in a different environment, having knowledge of a range of editors will allow you to adapt, otherwise you're going to be hindred by having to learn a new editor at a different job/project.

ok thanks for all your help. looking at the responses i have a more aimed question. what do you all generally encounter in the job place?

direct!
CLI for servers start from LAN to anything you can think as highest technology
GUI on workstations

Use the fastest.
Eventhough I am very confortable with CLI and love it, I disagree with people who say "Hey gui are for windows-lusers!". Thats old guru idea, its not true anymore IMHO.
If somebody is quicker in a gui, he's better.

Its like somebody who can use only keyboard shortcuts only, its amazingly faster.

You should know both.. because on the other side, when you crash your x window and doesn't know how to use vi.. you're a bit lost...

I use Windows XP at work, but installed Cygwin. That enables me to use grep and sed to extract information from logs. I back up commercials onto DVD, but there isn't a way to catalog them. So I wrote a very short script that takes extracts the information I need from a directory listing of the DVD, extracts the information I want, and then uses enscript and ps2pdf to produce PDF catalogs of the backups.
I wouldn't have any idea how to do that in windows.

learn emacs then elisp. Cryptic? yes but then all of life is...

The original vi editor is pretty much part of the std install of any Unix based OS eg Linux/*BSD/Solaris/HP-UX/AIX etc.
A lot of places these days will have vim (VI Improved) or allow you to download it.
OTOH, the presence of any other editor is a definite maybe ;-)
Therfore, it's worth knowing your way around the basics, even if you prefer another editor.
Note also that if you work on servers, most will not have a GUI running on them, so you'll either have to know eg vi/vim, or edit on your wkstn, then scp file across to server....

once i faced such situation

Then you need a big screen, mouse handling in text mode (gpm) , and go with
cat > file and copy paste