Changing IP Addresses

[Jonathan Hutchins]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshua Bergland" <kclug at mrj412.com>

> I just don't buy the argument that making Linux user friendly will
> hinder the OS.

I wouldn't buy or make that argument either.  However, "user friendly" and
"Microsoft Copycat" are not equivalent terms.  GUI tools are nice, and
they're a good step toward making Linux more accessible to the average
user - especially average users who have never known an environment prior to
Windows95 where configuration by command line was assumed.

However, those tools should work _with_ standard configuration files, not
strike out on their own and overwrite configurations from the standard text
files - as linuxconf definitely does.  They should work in a way that helps
the user see what's going on in the configuration, and possibly offer direct
access to the configuration files themselves - but not without showing
exactly where that information is being stored.  (This is one of the major
pains in the Microsoft world - you can't ever be sure a program is
completely uninstalled, because it leaves fewmets all over the operating
system.  Likely as not, a re-install will miraculously recover the settings
you made in the original, even if those settings cause the program to
crash.)

> Unless things change, I can't forsee Linux ever pentrating the desktop
> market. Of course, this may not be a goal of Linux either...

Since Linux, in and of itself, is not a market competitor but more a
philosophy and a development model, I find debate about "market share"
pretty obtuse.  I know what you mean, but I'm not overly worried about "our
side winning".