>
> In the German computer magazine c't (11/96) there was an interview
> with Linus Thorvalds. Asked about the most important developments for
> Linux in the near future he said: "... What is really interesting in
> the Linux-World are advances on the user-level: ApplixWare,
> StarOffice, Wabi, WordPerfect and so on. ..."
Agreed!
>
> I think to make Linux an alternative to Windows for Joe User, Linux
> system administration must be lots easier. This applies to other
> Unixes as well. In two years NT machines will be as powerful as
> sparcs. Why should anyone bother fighting with Unix sysadmin then?
> Have you ever added a HD under Solaris? I see, you got the point ;-)
Well, lets think about this for a minute. do you know any
"Joe Users" who can successfully install NT? I don't! Have
you ever tried to use the stupid control panel to manage
anything on NT/95? After surfing through who knows how many
levels of menus, you might just find something that looks
like it should be the correct one, but alas its not! Very
frustrating. Bill-ware tries to convince people that
computing is simple, but its not. We require 5 NT/95
support people for every SunOS/Solaris support person here.
Do you think that's because NT/95 administration is easier?
Have you ever tried to add a service under NT/95? Have you
ever actually gotten the software distribution on CD _and_
preinstalled and found out that you can't add software
components from the CD because it wasn't the exact
distribution used to do the install? Boy, that's fun!
Nothing lke telling your upper management that you can't add
LPR services to the NT server without reinstalling the OS!
(actually there's ways to do it, but its not in any manual
_anywhere_!)
>
> Back to Linux. I do think Linux must get a system administration shell
> as good looking as Win95's control.exe, but yet more easier to use
> (and it should fit on a root disc ;-)
Well, If you think that's good looking, its all yours. I
just hope that if such a tool gets developed (linuxconf
maybe?) its more useful than that piece of crap (control
panel, I mean). As far as fitting it on a root disk, What
exactly is on a root disk that requires a control panel to
manage? I think that the fact that linux software is better
than Bill-ware from an engineering standpoint (i.e. it
actually does what its supposed to, its documented, and when
there are known caveats, they are identified and documented
too, etc.) is enough to encourage the phenominal growth of
linux to continue ;-)
>
> The power user should still be possible to dig in /etc/* config files,
> so the control shell must use the usual Linux config files.
Well, I gues the "Power user" could always manually edit the
registry data, in all of its cryptic glory, on NT/95, eh?
>
> I think making Linux easier for end users is much more important than
> adding yet another feature to the kernel (therefore this post in
> dev.kernel ;-).
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. I thought your
message started out about a comment Linus (Mr. Torvalds to
you and me ;-)) made about user space developements! I'd
say this is an entirely user space issue as well, no? I do,
however, agree that making it easier to do simple things is
a good idea, but trying to pretend that complex things are
simple things is not a good idea. Let's leave that to
Bill-ware. *nix administration/networking/distributed
computing, etc. is complex and grows more complex.
Developing management tools is a good idea, but not to make
a situation where 90% of the "administrators" don't have a
clue about how the stuff actually works. What do you
suppose these people will do when it stops working?
That's where Bill-ware is heading more and more, and
right where Apple will most likely die one day. Cute GUIs are
no replacement for understanding. That's why the LDP is so
important.
This list is probably not the most appropriate for this
duscussion, so I'd be more than happy to discuss it further
off line :-)
Richard G. Roberto
richr@bear.com
011-81-3-3437-7967 - Tokyo, Japan
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