GUI Conf files [was Re: [PLUG] Linux From Scratch (LFS) anyone]

Zot O'Connor zot at whiteknighthackers.com
Wed Oct 29 03:34:02 UTC 2003


On Tue, 2003-10-28 at 20:08, Carla Schroder wrote:
> On Tuesday 28 October 2003 7:50 pm, AthlonRob wrote:

> 
> This is a chronic problem with Red Hat and Mandrake, and probably other 
> distributions too. Their GUI configs are not front-ends for the text config 
> files, but interact with the system in their own weird way. In my excellent 
> opinion, this is way lame. 

Try to write a GUI that can read the linux conf files and then write
back to them.

When you are done, let me edit the conf files for 5 minutes(*).  I bet
you your app will not work (i.e. the conf file will be wrong).

Bastille, Linuxconf, Webmin, (RH|Mandrake|Debian) config, etc. all have
to make the config files fit their needs in order to be sure it works.
On the other hand most of my config files are filled with commented
aborted attempts to get things to work.

Until there is some form of standardization on conf files, and a rigid
format to them, this will allows be a problem.  Even ini files have more
structure than most /etc/sysconfig files.  Probably the way to go is an
XML file, since each entry would have meta information about it, thus
apps could "upgrade" their understanding about the files.

Now I LOVE GUI config programs.  Why?  For *other* people.  I feel like
an idiot that I do not know how to add modems, or ISPs, or alternative
numbers to friend's/client's/my system without editing 4 or 5 files (or
running pppd from a terminal windows).  Make Linux sound oh so powerful
when I say "Of course you can dial to earthlink, all you need to do is
type "vi ......"  Even windows 98 has the pattern down fairly well.

Or USB/Flash drives.  Windows will just add a letter, and away you go. 
Linux, you have to jump through some hoops.  Now I can write "su -;
mkdir /mnt/flash; mount /mnt/sda1 /mnt/flask" in my sleep but I do not
expect my mom to be able to handle that.

With a good XML system, it might add bloat to files, but it could have
most *likely* option configured, and then ignored, yet still commented. 
That way text junkies like myself can edit them.




(*) 4 of the 5 minutes will be spent re-editing the files as I fix
goofs, typos, and the normal complete insanity.
 


-- 
Zot O'Connor

http://www.ZotConsulting.com
http://www.WhiteKnightHackers.com





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