Re: Per-user configuration, was Re:apt-get

[Andrew Hill <andru@treshna.com>]

Ethan Benson wrote:

>
> > It would allow us to write a generic program (probably patch debconf, or
> > web-driven interface), with a nice-UI, that would be run by an user whenever he
> > needs to change some settings on his account.
>
> *cough* WinNT *cough* GUI only *cough*   no thanks.
>
> I think your intentions are good but your ideas are misguided.  This
> is the exact kind of idea that makes people say `don't make GNU/Linux
> easy that will just turn it into Windows'  what they are worried about
> is someone coming along and deciding to get rid of the text based
> .files that we have now and replacing it with some monolithic
> (probably binary) registry that only the pointy clicky newbie program
> knows (or has access too in your plan!) how to edit.  if that occured
> the hackers who primarly use *nix now would no longer be able to hack
> ~/.bashrc with vi, joe, or emacs.   that argument is usually
> considered paranoid silliness for the reason that writing a pointy
> clicky app to modify ~/.bashrc is quite easy and need not change the
> format nor eliminate ~/.bashrc as it exists now, meaning if your a
> hacker and have no need for bloated point and drool interfaces you
> just fire up vi and hack .bashrc however you please.

I'd like to have a way to quickly default a whole bunch of user accounts
back to the orginal. I had to do it yesterday and it took a while, i removed a bunch
of packages from the network and peoples logins were failing cause they had
config files in there expecting them and then the logon would die.  a simple
script to do this would be nice but i just havn't got around to writing on.

ps. text config files are good. registry like thing bad.