Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 11:08:17PM -0400, Jacob Kuntz <jpk@cape.com> was heard to say:
> Daniel Burrows (Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu) wrote:
> > Erm, how many 'newbies' are going to know what a class A vs class C network
> > is, or what a "gateway" is, versus the number who'll freak out and run in
> > terror?
>
> ok, now i hate seeing free apps/desktop systems that just copy windows, and
> i dislike even more the idea that windows is a good standard to follow, but
> i do have to disagree with you on this point.
>
> windows doesn't hide the gateway from you, it's there right under netmask.
> lots of newbies use windows. i'd go so far as to say many people reading
> this list probably started on windows. have any of us "freaked out and ran
> away"?
>
> as far as the network class thing, lets just make sure it's possible to have
> classless subnets, too.
Sorry, I should've been more verbose..
First, the suggested "gateway" doesn't let you enter your gateway; it lets
you give a hint to the underlying code about your gateway. (Windows, since
you brought it up, lets you just say what your gateway is directly)
In my experience, most naive users do one of two things to set up a network:
(a) it's autoconfigured (DHCP or PPP)
(b) the network people give them a long list of parameters to enter
(IP address, netmask, gateway, DNS server, etc)
In the first (and arguably the preferable) case, this is unnecessary.
In the second case, the class doesn't matter, and will just confuse them
("My instructions say we need a netmask of 255.255.255.0, how do I enter that?")
This is an interesting suggestion though, and maybe munging the set of
questions asked will eliminate this problem (eg, show in the questions what
the result of each choice will be: Class C => 255.0.0.0 or whatever)
Daniel
--
/----------------- Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu> -----------------\
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