On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 10:01, seth vidal wrote: > > There's also a pretty strong argument that our primary target admin is > > going to be managing multiple systems and using kickstart, scripts, thin > > client, RHN, or other architectures to avoid configuring them > > one-by-one. > > is it? The strongest argument for that (IMHO) is that a single machine is just the simplest case of multiple networked machines. Having an architecture that is network/multi-host aware allows it to apply equally well to both the individual home user and the LAN sysadmin. > let me give you a few common examples: > 1. prof in the dept with a laptop > 2. my dad > > both run linux. I am the 'admin' for both machines. However I do not > have immediate access to ssh into the machine. So I have to be able to > talk them through things. Have you ever talked someone through vim or > emacs for editing a file in /etc? it's a nightmare. Well, aside from the issues of both vim and emacs being really, really unfriendly to first time users, talking someone through editing a text config file is much easier than trying to have them navigate a UI. Especially since UIs have a habit of changing much more quickly than the on-disk file format. If I'm running FC 3 and I'm trying to guide someone using FC 2 through a UI, the odds are pretty good it's going to take a lot longer than just having them edit the config files by hand. That's not counting the time it's going to take to have them find the right application. Even if the UI hasn't changed significantly, the odds are almost 100% (at this point) that the menu structure will have. > So I think there is definitely an argument for the home user to be > editing their config files - even if those files are network > configuration and adding a user. > > -sv I don't disagree, but this use case *should* be taken care of using the same tools that manage multiple hosts. Assuming the UI isn't poorly designed, most users would have no idea that the tools they were using could be used to manage multiple computers at the same time. -- Shahms King <shahms@xxxxxxxxxx>
