When you start using Linux and follow Linux-based websites and forums, you’ll often come across terms like GUI, CLI and sometimes TUI.
This chapter of Linux Jargon Buster briefly explains these terms so that you as a (new) Linux user can understand the context better when these acronyms are used.
To be honest, the terms like GUI, CLI or TUI are not exclusive to Linux. These are generic computing terms and you’ll find them used in non-Linux discussions as well.
GUI – Graphical User Interface
Probably the most common term you’ll across on It’s FOSS. It’s because we focus on desktop Linux users and try to cover the easy to use graphical methods and applications.
A GUI application or graphical application is basically anything that you can interact with your mouse, touchpad or touch screen. You have icons and other visual notions and you can use your mouse pointer to access the functionalities.
GIMP: A GUI app for photo editing
On Linux, a desktop environment provides the graphical interface for you to interact with your system. Then you can use GUI applications like GIMP, VLC Firefox, LibreOffice, file manager etc for various tasks.
GUI has made computing easier for the common users otherwise it would have remained a geek-only zone.
CLI – Command Line Interface
CLI is basically a command line program that accepts inputs to perform a certain function. Basically, any application that you can use via commands in the terminal falls into this category.
apt-cache is a CLI tool for interacting with APT cache on Debian-based systems
Early computers didn’t have mouse to interact with the operating system. You had to do interact with the machine using commands.
If you think that’s difficult you should know that the earlier computers didn’t even have a screen to see what is being typed on, they had actual paper printer to see their typed commands. I have never used such a computer or seen in my real life. The closest thing I used was the microcontroller kits during my studies.
Ken Thompson And Dennis Ritchie Working on developing UNIX operating system on PDP 11 computer. | Image Credit
Is CLI relevant these days? Absolutely. Commands always have their benefit specially when you are dealing with the core functioning and configuration of the operating system like setting up firewall, managing network or even package management.
You may have a GUI-based application to do the same task but commands give you more granular access to those features. In any case, you’ll find that GUI application also interact with the operating system with commands (used in their code).
Handbrake GUI app uses FFMPEG CLI tool underneath
Many popular GUI applications are often based on CLI tools. Take Handbrake for example. It’s a popular open source media converter and it uses the FFMPEG command line tool underneath.
Quite evidently, using command line tools is not as easy as the graphical ones. Don’t worry. Unless you have specific needs, you should be able to use your Linux system graphically. However, knowing the basic Linux commands helps a great deal.
TUI – Terminal User Interface (also known as Text-based User Interface)
This is the most uncommon term of the three. TUI is basically part GUI and part CLI. Confused? Let me explain that for you.
You already know that early computers used CLI. Before the advent of the actual GUI, the text-based user interface provided a very basic kind of graphical interaction in the terminal. You have more visuals and could use mouse and keyboard to interact with the application.
nnn File Browser in terminal
TUI stands for text-based user interface or terminal user interface. Text-based because primarily, you have a bunch of text on the screen and terminal user interface because they are used only in the terminal.
TUI apps are not as user-friendly as GUI applications, and they often have a learning curve involved but they are a bit easier to use than the command line tools.
In the end…
TUI apps are often also considered as CLI applications because they are restricted to the terminal. In my opinion, it’s up to you if you consider them different from CLI.
I hope you liked this part of Linux Jargon Buster. If you have any suggestions for topics in this series, please let me know in the comments and I’ll try to cover them in the future.
Sensing the tech trend, Ubuntu tried its hands on creating a Linux-based mobile operating system. The first announcement came a decade back and six years down the line, Ubuntu closed the curtains on the project.
What went wrong? How it started? Is Ubuntu Touch still alive? Let’s take a look at the history of Ubuntu Touch in chronological order.
Shuttleworth Announced Ubuntu Touch
The Ubuntu Touch project began with a blog post by Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth. The blog post, dated October 31, 2011, started with a bold prediction: “By 14.04 LTS Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud.”
Shuttleworth went on to explain that this move would be accomplished mainly through the use of the company’s new desktop environment, Unity. (Unity was introduced in Ubuntu 10.10.) “Unity, the desktop interface in today’s Ubuntu 11.10, was designed with this specific vision in mind.”
The whole idea behind Unity was to create an interface that would work on different screen resolutions.
“Unity’s core elements are arranged in exactly the way we need to create coherence across all of those devices. This was the origin of the name Unity – a single core interface framework, that scales across all screens, and supports all toolkits.”
Shuttleworth said that this move was motivated by the increasing use of mobile devices. “Make no mistake – just as the world is changing for manufacturers so is it changing for Linux distributions. Today, 70% of people in Egypt access the Internet solely via the phone. Even in the US that figure is a startling 25%.”
Ubuntu Touch is Released to the World
The Unity desktop environment was originally introduced in the netbook version of Ubuntu 10.10. However, the phone interface wouldn’t be seen by the public until 2013. Mark Shuttleworth demoed it at the 2013 CES.
Ubuntu Touch 1.0 was baked into the Ubuntu 13.10 release. This version primarily supported “Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 phone” with other images being available, as well.
Note: The last item on the above list (desktop convergence) might be a new idea to some people. This meant that you could use your Ubuntu Touch device like a phone, but you could also hook it up to a display, keyboard, and mouse to use it as a desktop. Unfortunately, Ubuntu Touch never gained this feature.
Ubuntu Tries to Crowdfund a Phone
To show off what an ideal Ubuntu phone would look like, Canonical started a crowdfunding campaign to finance the Ubuntu Edge on July 22, 2013. The goal was to raise $32 million in a month to produce 40,000 devices.
According to the campaign’s page, Canonical hoped to use the new device “to provide a low-volume, high-technology platform, crowdfunded by enthusiasts and mobile computing professionals. A pioneering project that accelerates the adoption of new technologies and drives them down into the mainstream.”
The Ubuntu Edge was considered high-end at the time with the following specs:
Mobile OS
Dual-boots Android and Ubuntu mobile
Desktop OS
Ubuntu Desktop
RAM
4GB
Internal storage
128GB
Screen
720 x 1,280, 4.5 inches
Protection
Sapphire Glass
Connectivity
Dual-LTE, GSM
Speakers
Stereo
Battery
Silicon-anode Li-ion
Price
$695
Interestingly, several large companies pledged money. For example, Bloomberg pledged $800,000. They made this pledge because they believed that Ubuntu Touch “could benefit its clients and the future of mobile Relevant Products/Services computing.”
Ultimately, the campaign didn’t reach its goal. It only reached $12.7 million or 37% of the goal. The amount raised was the biggest a crowdfunding campaign ever saw.
Ubuntu Touch Goes into Production (Sort of)
Though Canonical failed to make its own hardware, it continued working on the software part i.e., developing the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system.
Ubuntu Touch was released to device makers in 2014. That same year, two device makers committed to produce Ubuntu phones. These two companies, Chinese Meizu and Spanish BQ, weren’t exactly global household names, but Shuttleworth said that was all part of the plan.
“While we’re happy to work with household names, we want to be involved with partners for whom we can be a significant part of their story, rather than being appended to the more complicated story of other brands.”
Both companies produced and released several phones with Ubuntu Touch as the main operating system. BQ also released an Ubuntu Touch tablet. However, no other manufacturer signed up to make Ubuntu Touch devices.
Canonical Discontinues Ubuntu Touch
Unity 8 was in beta when Ubuntu discontinued Unity and Ubuntu Touch project
In early April of 2017, Mark Shuttleworth made another announcement. After mentioning that Canonical had experienced an “excellent quarter and excellent year”, Shuttleworth announced the end of the Ubuntu Touch and Unity. “I’m writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell.” Instead, Canonical would focus on desktop Ubuntu.
He continued:
I took the view that, if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed, alternatives available to manufacturers. I was wrong on both counts. In the community, our efforts were seen fragmentation not innovation. And industry has not rallied to the possibility, instead taking a ‘better the devil you know’ approach to those form factors, or investing in home-grown platforms. What the Unity8 team has delivered so far is beautiful, usable and solid, but I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear.
He closed by saying that it was a hard decision to make because of his strong belief in the future of convergence.
The Community Keeps the Project Alive
When Shuttleworth’s announcement hit the internet, all the supporters of Ubuntu Touch were shocked. Many were unsure of what would happen to the devices that they owned. Thankfully, the community came to the rescue.
Shortly after Shuttleworth’s announcement, Marius Gripsgård announced that the UBports team would be keeping Ubuntu Touch alive. UBports was already well known in the Ubuntu Touch community for their work on porting it to more devices.
Several other projects tried to do the same with the desktop version of Unity, but most did not last long. One of them had the inventive name of Yunit but I guess it is not actively developed anymore.
Ubuntu Touch was not the success that Canonical wanted it to be. It was too early for the market. However, it did lay the groundwork for the Linux phones that we have now.
I believe that the PinePhone and the Purism Librem 5 phone would not have come about without Ubuntu Touch sparking interest in a Linux phone. At the same time, the Canonical engineers and programmers solved problems that laid the groundwork for these modern phones. You don’t get successes without a few failures along the way.
If you found this article interesting, please take a minute to share it on social media, Hacker News, or Reddit.
Sensing the tech trend, Ubuntu tried its hands on creating a Linux-based mobile operating system. The first announcement came a decade back and six years down the line, Ubuntu closed the curtains on the project.
What went wrong? How it started? Is Ubuntu Touch still alive? Let’s take a look at the history of Ubuntu Touch in chronological order.
Shuttleworth Announced Ubuntu Touch
The Ubuntu Touch project began with a blog post by Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth. The blog post, dated October 31, 2011, started with a bold prediction: “By 14.04 LTS Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud.”
Shuttleworth went on to explain that this move would be accomplished mainly through the use of the company’s new desktop environment, Unity. (Unity was introduced in Ubuntu 10.10.) “Unity, the desktop interface in today’s Ubuntu 11.10, was designed with this specific vision in mind.”
The whole idea behind Unity was to create an interface that would work on different screen resolutions.
“Unity’s core elements are arranged in exactly the way we need to create coherence across all of those devices. This was the origin of the name Unity – a single core interface framework, that scales across all screens, and supports all toolkits.”
Shuttleworth said that this move was motivated by the increasing use of mobile devices. “Make no mistake – just as the world is changing for manufacturers so is it changing for Linux distributions. Today, 70% of people in Egypt access the Internet solely via the phone. Even in the US that figure is a startling 25%.”
Ubuntu Touch is Released to the World
The Unity desktop environment was originally introduced in the netbook version of Ubuntu 10.10. However, the phone interface wouldn’t be seen by the public until 2013. Mark Shuttleworth demoed it at the 2013 CES.
Ubuntu Touch 1.0 was baked into the Ubuntu 13.10 release. This version primarily supported “Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 phone” with other images being available, as well.
Note: The last item on the above list (desktop convergence) might be a new idea to some people. This meant that you could use your Ubuntu Touch device like a phone, but you could also hook it up to a display, keyboard, and mouse to use it as a desktop. Unfortunately, Ubuntu Touch never gained this feature.
Ubuntu Tries to Crowdfund a Phone
To show off what an ideal Ubuntu phone would look like, Canonical started a crowdfunding campaign to finance the Ubuntu Edge on July 22, 2013. The goal was to raise $32 million in a month to produce 40,000 devices.
According to the campaign’s page, Canonical hoped to use the new device “to provide a low-volume, high-technology platform, crowdfunded by enthusiasts and mobile computing professionals. A pioneering project that accelerates the adoption of new technologies and drives them down into the mainstream.”
The Ubuntu Edge was considered high-end at the time with the following specs:
Mobile OS
Dual-boots Android and Ubuntu mobile
Desktop OS
Ubuntu Desktop
RAM
4GB
Internal storage
128GB
Screen
720 x 1,280, 4.5 inches
Protection
Sapphire Glass
Connectivity
Dual-LTE, GSM
Speakers
Stereo
Battery
Silicon-anode Li-ion
Price
$695
Interestingly, several large companies pledged money. For example, Bloomberg pledged $800,000. They made this pledge because they believed that Ubuntu Touch “could benefit its clients and the future of mobile Relevant Products/Services computing.”
Ultimately, the campaign didn’t reach its goal. It only reached $12.7 million or 37% of the goal. The amount raised was the biggest a crowdfunding campaign ever saw.
Ubuntu Touch Goes into Production (Sort of)
Though Canonical failed to make its own hardware, it continued working on the software part i.e., developing the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system.
Ubuntu Touch was released to device makers in 2014. That same year, two device makers committed to produce Ubuntu phones. These two companies, Chinese Meizu and Spanish BQ, weren’t exactly global household names, but Shuttleworth said that was all part of the plan.
“While we’re happy to work with household names, we want to be involved with partners for whom we can be a significant part of their story, rather than being appended to the more complicated story of other brands.”
Both companies produced and released several phones with Ubuntu Touch as the main operating system. BQ also released an Ubuntu Touch tablet. However, no other manufacturer signed up to make Ubuntu Touch devices.
Canonical Discontinues Ubuntu Touch
Unity 8 was in beta when Ubuntu discontinued Unity and Ubuntu Touch project
In early April of 2017, Mark Shuttleworth made another announcement. After mentioning that Canonical had experienced an “excellent quarter and excellent year”, Shuttleworth announced the end of the Ubuntu Touch and Unity. “I’m writing to let you know that we will end our investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell.” Instead, Canonical would focus on desktop Ubuntu.
He continued:
I took the view that, if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed, alternatives available to manufacturers. I was wrong on both counts. In the community, our efforts were seen fragmentation not innovation. And industry has not rallied to the possibility, instead taking a ‘better the devil you know’ approach to those form factors, or investing in home-grown platforms. What the Unity8 team has delivered so far is beautiful, usable and solid, but I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear.
He closed by saying that it was a hard decision to make because of his strong belief in the future of convergence.
The Community Keeps the Project Alive
When Shuttleworth’s announcement hit the internet, all the supporters of Ubuntu Touch were shocked. Many were unsure of what would happen to the devices that they owned. Thankfully, the community came to the rescue.
Shortly after Shuttleworth’s announcement, Marius Gripsgård announced that the UBports team would be keeping Ubuntu Touch alive. UBports was already well known in the Ubuntu Touch community for their work on porting it to more devices.
Several other projects tried to do the same with the desktop version of Unity, but most did not last long. One of them had the inventive name of Yunit but I guess it is not actively developed anymore.
Ubuntu Touch was not the success that Canonical wanted it to be. It was too early for the market. However, it did lay the groundwork for the Linux phones that we have now.
I believe that the PinePhone and the Purism Librem 5 phone would not have come about without Ubuntu Touch sparking interest in a Linux phone. At the same time, the Canonical engineers and programmers solved problems that laid the groundwork for these modern phones. You don’t get successes without a few failures along the way.
If you found this article interesting, please take a minute to share it on social media, Hacker News, or Reddit.
The small form factor of the Raspberry Pi Zero W enables a new range of projects. In fact, a lot of people use the Pi Zero in the final version of the project after prototyping on a different full-sized Pi board. And, that’s because it consumes much less power compared to the flagship Pi boards and makes it ideal to build battery powered gadgets.
After scouring Instructables, Reddit, Hackaday, other maker oriented communities and my own experience with Pi, I have compiled a list of projects built around the Raspberry Pi Zero and the Raspberry Pi Zero W. The community is extremely innovative and all these projects make impressive use of various features of this maker board.
So, in addition to the awesome list of Raspberry Pi Projects that we covered earlier, here, we will be focusing on Raspberry Pi Zero!
Top Creative Projects You Can Build With Raspberry Pi Zero
This is by far my favorite project built around the Raspberry Pi Zero, hence featured at the top. Today we have emulators for most of the retro games. This project puts the Pi Zero in the classic game-boy form factor. You can play most of your favorite retro games and you can play them anywhere.
This project is also beautifully documented in YouTube video(s) and on Instructables.
Amazon’s Alexa has always been very tinkerer friendly and makers around the world have built all kinds of Alexa based devices. This project also adds RGB programmable LED’s to make it look a little more like the echo speaker.
Getting a proper home music system setup is usually expensive. However, with the inexpensive Raspberry Pi Zero, you can utilize your MP3 collection to set up a home network music system.
This project uses the PiDrive, PiDrive is basically a Raspberry Pi Zero W attached to a hard disk. Unfortunately, I think it has been discontinued but you can also build it using a normal Pi Zero W in different configurations. You can play local music or even stream from different services.
This is something I personally use on a daily basis and it has completely changed my internet experience. If you’re someone who doesn’t want to see advertisements while you browse around online, an Ad blocker using Raspberry Pi would be exciting, right?
Pi-Hole on a Raspberry Pi can block all the ads on your entire network. Anyone on the network with an active Pi-Hole will have an ad-free experience. It also speeds up your internet experience since the bandwidth used by ads is freed up.
You can watch Linus’ video to get an idea or refer to the detailed post in Linus Tech Tips forums linked in the button below.
This is another nifty little project which is a tinkerer’s dream. Building your own smart speaker powered by the Google Assistant? Indeed, exciting!
Here, a Pi Zero is paired with a Bluetooth speaker, microphone and the Google Assistant SDK to achieve some functionalities. You can ask questions and do most of the things you can with the official Google Home device. This project does not handle the casting part of the Google Home experience though.
Pedal Pi is a programmable Lo-Fi guitar pedal built using the Pi Zero where you can program your own custom effects. The project is fully open source (including the hardware) as well. It goes to prove how versatile the Pi Zero can be.
It can be an incredibly fun experience for people who are makers and also into digital music.
There are a lot of different robots you can build using the Pi Zero. It is almost perfect for any kind of robot that you can think of building. It has ample amount of GPIO, a decent processor, a camera interface and the choice of software stack and programming language.
The ZeroBot is an FPV bot which also has a camera and is able to transmit what it is seeing. It even features a completely 3D printed body.
Raspberry Pi Zero W comes with a CSI connector where you can connect the camera module. This compatibility also lets you easily build a WiFi-powered CCTV camera(s) for your home at a very reasonable price compared to commercial products.
The motionEyeOS is a purposely built to convert your SBC (in this case the Pi Zero) to a surveillance system. You can find more information in the video above or head to the link below.
GIF’s have taken over social media and all IM platforms. Just thinking of a dedicated GIF camera makes me chuckle. That’s exactly what this project is all about. I am very curious about how it would turn out with the new HQ camera which has a much better image quality.
Building a telescope camera is one of the most popular camera based applications for the Pi Zero. Makers around the world have taken amazing pictures with their DIY telescope cameras.
If you are into 3D printing, you would have heard about OctoPrint at some point. OctoPrint unlocks many feature comforts we enjoy with normal printers like sending print jobs directly from the computer to the 3D printer instead of using a micro SD card. You can also attach a webcam and monitor your prints and control all aspects of the printer.
OctoPrint is usually used with the bigger Pi’s but it can also be used with the Raspberry Pi Zero W with some soldering and mods. It is important to note that there is low WiFi interference when using the Pi Zero since it can impact prints. Here are some references talking about OctoPrint on Pi Zero to help you build it yourself:
This seems like quite a fun idea, you can actually make the Pi Zero W broadcast using FM.
It also happens to be a simple project and you don’t need many additional components either. You can be your own neighborhood RJ, do make sure to check out the legal aspects of a pirate radio station in your country.
Here’s a project making something which might sound very trivial but nevertheless is super cool and underrated.
The freedom of being able to program your own alarm clock, automating it with scripts and making your life a little easier and fun (and still not waking up) sounds exciting!
It’s 2020 and you might be thinking who would want a portable music player since mobile phones have replaced them almost entirely. But, there are always people (including myself) who would want a device dedicated to music and does not do anything else.
This project features the Raspberry Pi Zero W in another form and looks pretty neat. It’s called the Pi Pod.
You can also design your own 3D printable enclosure and customize every element of the music player.
The Pi Zero packs in enough features and processing power for it be at the heart of a drone. It is light weight, cheaper than some alternative drone specific boards too. You also get the freedom of using different firmware(s) or code one on your own.
There are also many open source designs available for the frame of the drone on Thingiverse.
The Pi Zero W is capable of connecting to the internet via WiFi, it also has all the GPIO and display outputs to make a highly functional device to display information from the internet.
The freedom of programming means that you can have the display show any information you need. Your google calendar events, stock prices and anything you can find on the internet.
Here are a couple of interesting projects which are built around this idea.
Ever since Texas Instruments came out with the mini projector evaluation board, a Raspberry Pi Zero based projector has been a very popular project.
If you can get your hands on the projector module, this can be a very interesting build. This is not a beginner-friendly project, but a tinkerer should feel right at home. You can find all the relevant details from the video above.
23. VPN Server
In today’s world, extra care needs to be taken about companies barging into one’s privacy and using a VPN is becoming more and more commonplace.
Fret not, you can utilize the Raspberry Pi Zero W with OpenVPN to add an extra layer of security to your home network. This can be a great for small families where everyone in the house can be protected and don’t need to separate VPN subscriptions.
This is a very cool project, a complete weather station which can display various weather metrics for the day and forecasts too. It even includes a 3D printed case which looks pretty sharp. The amazing part is that you can use the display to show things other than weather as well.
As I also noticed in another similar project on Instructables, you may also tweak it with your own custom database and website.
An ambient lighting system enhances the TV experience, this is another amazing project involving the Raspberry Pi Zero.
In real life this effect feels like a dynamic portrait mode applied to the screen and whatever is being shown on the screen, makes the experience a lot immersive.
GreatScott (a popular YouTuber) for content based around electronics and DIY shows you around with the project in the video above. You may also refer to the written instructions from the link below.
The Pi Zero W is a great board to make any old printer free from being fixed to one computer and have the freedom of placing it anywhere.
This way print jobs can be sent from multiple computers, phones on the same network. This is a quality of life improvement which is highly underrated, even in households.
This project utilizes CUPS running on Pi Zero W to make your printer wireless.
You can pack in 10’s of these tiny computers together to have access to massive amounts of parallel processing. The GPU’s on these SBC’s can be utilized for challenging compute needs.
Regular Raspberry Pi’s have long been used to make clusters and Raspberry Pi based super computers consisting of 100’s – 1000’s of Pi’s. Since the introduction of the Pi Zero with it’s lower price and size, it is possible to put more of them into a small space.
There are many custom boards which are built to hold multiple Pi Zero’s.
The projects featured here are only a tip of the iceberg. You can find many more projects if you look around on the internet. The versatility of the Raspberry Pi Zero is unprecedented, combined with its affordability it is one of the most used SBC by makers and tinkerers around the world.
What did you build with the Raspberry Pi Zero ? Put it in the comments below along with your favorite projects.
