Learning to use the Revision Control System (RCS) requires minimal previous knowledge. Since RCS is largely an extension of the file system, users are expected to be familiar with the working with file systems. RCS is a command line tool, therefore familiarity with using the command line, also referred to as the shell is a skill necessary for learning RCS. So RCS requires a moderate amount of ability to work with the file system from the command line.

GNU RCS is not available by the use of a graphical user interface (GUI). There are proprietary version control systems with GUIs, and people have even created ones for RCS. Currently, a free software GUI for RCS has not been created, but one need only be developed.