Why run apps like firefox in terminal?

I see that we can run apps in terminal but I dont know why we would (should) do that. I did a quick search and found that you can but none of the articles said what the benefits are. Can someone tell my why I would or what the benefits are?

Hey @waynetb!
It appears that a lot of posts are slipping through the cracks and I’m just now finding them (also I had a horrible schedule this past month).
There is no real reason to run GUI applications via terminal, unless you want to debug them. The terminal is really good at printing out the complains an app might have - or the reason if one is not running at all. I tend to do that personally when an application isn’t working or is crashing. Usually, it tells me that a library isn’t present or something didn’t work. That’s the only real benefit of it. Another one is that you can force-quit the application by going to the terminal and hitting CTRL+C. :slight_smile:

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@vasileios ,

  1. in case we encounter a crashed app, what is the terminal command we use for debugging the app?

  2. In the force-quit scenario, is there additional syntax required along with the CTRL+C? Like, to specify which app we’re aiming to quit?

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Thanks! I was poking around and was wondering if I missed some cool trick. LOL this explains my question very well. By the way, you may remember when I was new to Linux I was disappointed that Firefox refused to use my default file manager. I fixed that with a 27" monitor. Drag and drop just like you told me! Its awesome.

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Hey @nwarren,
When you run an application via terminal, then the terminal input pauses for as long as you are running the application itself. Once you quit (the app), then the terminal can be used for input again. Once you hit CTRL+C on that busy terminal, then it will terminate the app it ran.

Per the debugging, each application is different. You can try to execute the name of the application and add the --help after it to see if it offers a “verbose” option. If yes, then run the app with it.

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