Re: new debian user questions
At 09:19 PM 10/19/1997 -0700, George Bonser wrote:
>
>On 20-Oct-97 A. M. Varon wrote:
>>
>>Example, to change the hostname, you could do that with lisa. But the
>>truth is, you could easily edit /etc/HOSTNAME and it would give you the
>>same effect. Please note that this apply not only to linux but other
>>variants of unix as well. So knowing this is a very big advantage for you.
>>
>>Although it would be a bit hard to learn linux system administration at
>>first, it would really pay off in the long run. If you have any questions,
>>search for it in the web or ask it here.
>
>That is just the point. There are people that WANT and NEED to be shielded
from
>the nitty-gritty details of Unix. That is the entire point of develpoing
tools
>and scripts ... so you don't HAVE to remember all the little tweaks that need
>to be done to change things. If your hobby is administration of the system,
>fine, but there are some folks out there that get their most enjoyment out of
>USING it. Solaris has administrative GUI's, so does HP-UX. It saves the
admin
>time. I have scripts for new users at work, all I need to do is add them
to the
>mail alias and a prototype passwd file and create a home directory. A script
>moves the dot-files, makes the NIS maps, does the shadow thing, etc. The
more
>operations that you need to perform, the better your chances of making a
>mistake or forgetting something.
>
>I, for one, would much rather have some sort of a tool so I can get back to
>enjoying my system and not spend as much time configuring it.
>
I totally agree. I find using Linux a lot of fun. I've been able to do a
lot of things with Caldera and learn system administration at a slower pace
(or maybe not at all). Maybe it would be better for me to use soemthing
without the crutches that Caldera has, but it certainly can be frustrating.
As for admin tools... I prefer to have a choice. NT does not give you this
choice. You are locked-in to doing it their way. Caldera gives me a choice.
I can use the tools or go right to the dotfile or resource file and change
things.
I am gradually doing more and more at the CLI. It's certainly faster to
type vi /etc/fstab and add an entry. However, I don't do it often enough
that I remember the syntax for all the entries. This is where LISA is
handy. LISA also lets me see what a proper entry looks like. That can be a
great learning aid.
Tools like LISA are not IMO against the philosophy of debian. Dselect is a
much more powerful tool than other distributions have. It does a lot of the
work for you. The shortcomings of rpm are why I am looking into debian.
Upgrading a Redhat-based system is a mess. Dselect makes it an easy process.
I suspect I'll keep using Caldera and just try to learn as much as I can so
I can move to debian eventually. I can see that debian will allow me more
room to grow in the future.
--
Stuart Krivis stuart@krivis.com
[Team OS/2]
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