Changing IP Addresses

[JD Runyan]

On Mon, Feb ,  at 01:30:13PM -0600, Brian Densmore wrote:
> <warning: may contain rantings>
> 
> > From: JD Runyan 
> > 
> > On Mon, Feb ,  at 11:46:23AM -0600, Joshua Bergland wrote:
> > > There are definitely at least two camps in the Linux world, 
> > > those that 
> > ...
> >   You can have distributions that suit both camps of people.
> > > I just don't buy the argument that making Linux user friendly will 
> > > hinder the OS. 
> > ...
> > Tell me how you will create a user-friendly OS that still 
> > allows granular 
> > level configuration.  
> The way I see it. The OS is independent of whether you are /usr/friendly
> or not. The GUI is just an application layer on top of the OS.
> 
> You have to keep the *nix structure in mind.
Trust me, I understand that.  This is why I pointed out different distros,
as being the solution to the problem.
> 
>    ______________
>   |  __________  |
>   | |  ______  | |
>   | | |kernel| | |
>   | | |______| | |
>   | |  shell   | |
>   | |__________| |
>   | Applications |
>   |______________|
> 
> 
> > When you change something manually, you 
> > may have a 
> > different style than the configuration application.  Your 
> > style may hinder
> > that app from understanding the configuration. 
> If a user is manually configuring, he/she wouldn't likely be using
> a "tool" (aka configuration application). Also some configuration 
> files are dangerous to maintain manually
> (sendmail comes to mind, although I know I could - I won't).
> 
> I can understand the need/desire to manually configure a system, but
> most
> administrators I know have "tools" to maintain the systems. Because,
> although 
> they do use the command line and sometimes manually edit configuration
> files,
> they find maintaining a system gets to be a bit tedious to do manually.
> Generally 
> speaking, if it is something you are going to do more that a few times,
> it is more 
> effective to have a "tool".
You are correct about the tools, and do to the fact no two systems are
the same that I administer, and they are not the same as someone elses,
it is I who write those tools most of the time.
> 
> I believe a GUI and configuration applications are very important, but
> shouldn't be
> "forced" down anyone's throat. Like Mandrake does with linuxconf.
> Although it can be shut 
> off. If you don't like them then you should be able to not install them.
> 
GUI tools are what are required for the average user to configure their machine.
There are limits to what you can do effectively with these tools.  If I 
install an application from RPM then it will probably work with all of the tools
provided, but if I aquire some custom version, then the tools break.  It is a
fact of life.  The normal user can sit down at my Mandrake machine, and do thier 
work with no problems, and Linuxconf was never installed on my system, so I am not
sure about the cramming down your throat thing.  I avoid mandrake, redhat, and 
many of the other distros for servers, because they are not good canidates.  
They tend to alter the default kernel, and libc configurations too much.  I lean
towards more basic distros for this, so I can custom compile the servers to 
my needs.
> <rant>
> No, I can't see how making Linux /usr/friendly can hurt it. I of course
> would love to 
> have all the spare time to manually configure every little piece of
> Linux. That would 
> mean I could use that time to do something fun, like throw myself out of
> an aircraft 
> from 10,000 feet at 300 mph. I have enough to do without spending every
> waking moment
> configuring "dis dat an' de udder ding". 
> </rant>
Of course creating flavors that are more user friendly makes sense.  There
just should be no edict that all the versions meet that qualification.  This
would make Linux ultimately into the same bloat that Windows has become.  We are 
already seeing a need to merge frame-buffer graphics into the Kernel to achieve
the GUI speeds windows gets for games.  This is a neccessary evil of sorts.
I support it as long as I don't have to compile this into my kernel for a server.
On a server that runs X I am perfectly happy with the current graphics sub-
systems, and am as well on my workstation for admin work.  

The biggest obstacles to overcome are the following.
1) The desktop applications must provide the ease of use, and the totality of the
   functionality that MS products provide.
2) The psychological barrier of something different.  People like predictability,
   and windows is clearly that.  You know how things work, even if they don't 
   always work well.  I would say the same of most of the major distros of 
   Linux.  The oddities of Linux are no more complex than the oddities of Windows,
   and the difference between a mac and WinTel are not any more significant.  You 
   would envounter the same resistance moving a Windows user to a Mac as you 
   would to Linux.  Someone who tackles this must be prepared to orientate the 
   users to the new environment.
-- 
JD Runyan
		"You can't milk a point."
			David M. Kuehn, Ph.D.