Re: Not for me.
On Mon, 4 Mar 2013 22:59:33 +0100
"Morel Bérenger" <berenger.morel@neutralite.org> wrote:
> Le Lun 4 mars 2013 22:26, Joe a écrit :
> > On Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:54:50 -0600
> > Yaro Kasear <yaro@marupa.net> wrote:
> > Mark is wrong, Windows is also a command-line OS.
>
> Hum... for windows 9x (and Me, and 3.x) ok, since they are based on
> MSDOS, but for NT family, there is no way to run it without graphical
> layer. In that family, the commandline is an option, unlike graphical
> modes, and unlike linux distributions, where the graphical stuff is
> optional.
>
> Well, I might be wrong, I'm not an admin... but if one here knows how
> to remove, say, explorer.exe, I would be very happy to learn how to,
> since it would mean I could replace the buggy (I stopped at windows
> XP, it may explain my harsh words... or not.) graphical stuff with
> something more stable.
>
>
I didn't say it could be run without the GUI, and in fact there's no
doubt that Microsoft went out of its way to prevent that happening. The
whole thrust of Windows marketing is visual, and for someone to find a
way to turn off the GUI would be a massive propaganda coup. I remember
when someone proved that Win98 could run without Internet Explorer
installed, contrary to what Microsoft explicitly stated. Windows 3.11
was the last version where the GUI was explicitly run on top of a
command-line OS. That *is* a fundamental difference between Windows and
Linux, but it doesn't mean that every aspect of Windows can *only* be
controlled using the GUI, or indeed controlled through the GUI at all.
You can no more run a graphical Windows application without a GUI than
you can run a graphical Linux application without a GUI. I'd hate to
try to design a PCB layout on either OS without being able to see it
displayed as I worked, even though I could theoretically do it by
writing a list of suitable values to a text file.
But control of the OS, the nuts and bolts, is all via the command line.
There are certainly GUI admin tools, but as with Linux, they generally
offer convenience and speed, but only a subset of the full control
options. And not always convenience: I can look up many networking
parameters through various dialogue boxes, but to see it all quickly,
the command-line ipconfig is somewhat similar to ifconfig.
If I want to create a contact in the Exchange Global Address List, I do
it with part of the Exchange Manager GUI. If I want to import or export
lots of such contacts, I use a command-line LDIF or CSV import/export
tool, working directly into Active Directory, because the GUI doesn't
offer any means of doing that. From any command line in the domain,
given suitable credentials, I can read and modify a domain controller's
Active Directory using a command-line LDAP query tool. Many parts of AD
can be accessed by GUI tools, but certainly not all of it. And so on...
It has to be that way, as under the domain security model, many of
the computers' configurations, both server and workstation, are enforced
from the central LDAP database, Active Directory, so everything has to
be scriptable. The domain controller cannot operate a workstation's
firewall by moving a mouse pointer around, even if that's how a human
user does it. The infamous Registry is a database of numbers and
strings, not desktop coordinates, and *that* can be remotely written to
using a command-line tool. And the Registry is the Windows /etc/*, and
AD is basically the /etc/* for an entire organisation.
If we have two interfaces to a system, one much more powerful than the
other, it is easy to see which is the 'real' one, and which one lies on
top of the other.
--
Joe
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