I would say that a control panel, or at least a GUI interface is ESSENTIAL for getting started. After all, think back to the days of DOS, did you actually really know how it worked? No, me neither.
There are far too many dangerous commands to risk it, plus think about installations. Well yes, they are easy enough to do from a shell prompt... but wouldn't you rather hit extract and install?
A knowledge of the command prompt is great, it allows you to fine tune, quickly check things, delve deeper into your system, but unless you know exactly what you're doing, spend a little more and make your life easier with something graphical.
John
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