[CLUE-Tech] Upgrading to Red Hat V7.2 - Experiences?

[Dan Harris]

While I agree with you that RedHat has made some serious efforts to make 
Linux easier "for the masses", I disagree that this is a bad thing.

I have been a RedHat user for 4 years now and have seen more GUI stuff 
with each release.  If they FORCED you to use it, that's one thing, but 
mereley having these features I feel is a step in the right direction 
for RedHat and Linux in general.  In order for Linux to continue to grow 
  past the market segment of us "geeks", they need to get more 
point-and-clicky.  Of course those of us who understand the inner 
workings of the OS are always going to have an advantage compared to 
those who just know where X,Y,Z icons live in KDE.  But let's look at 
the big picture.  I hope that you guys are interested in seeing Linux 
keep moving into the mainstream, and frankly it's not going to make it 
far without something similar to what the average user is accustomed to, 
GUI's.

Should we really expect the "average" user to know how to edit their 
printcap file just so they can print a document?  I don't think so.  If 
they can click a button and make it print, THAT is going to keep them as 
users.  I pray that in future versions of RedHat or any other distro, 
new users will not drop it like a hot rock because they learn that they 
need 12 different dependencies to compile before they can get their 
browser or word processor or what-not to work.

We, as enthusiasts, are willing to put up with some of the more 
difficult aspects of working with a *nix system.  But we are a definite 
minority.  The others sit down on their computer to perform certain 
functions.  They need to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. 
They don't want to read README files, they don't want to debug "make" 
errors, they don't even want to SEE a command-line interface.  They want 
all of their apps to have the same "look and feel" as what they are used 
to (Windows).  They want to "work using the computer", not "work on the 
computer".

I use RedHat on 5 servers now plus my home workstation.  I do 98% of my 
admin work from bash.  It works, and it's what I prefer.  You can always 
choose not to install the GUI tools also.  I've got a few servers that 
don't even have X installed. They hum along 24/7 with no complaints.  I 
can admin them just as efficiently and understand just as much about the 
  distro as a Slackware user or Debian, or (insert favorite bare-bones 
distro).

If Linux is to move forward and become a real threat on the desktop, 
distro makers NEED to put these gui features in.  Otherwise, they are 
not going to get out of the server closets.

-Dan Harris



> <beginrant>
> I remember the same argument when I started out on the web development path with
> M$ FrontPage97. "You can edit HTML if you want to; don't have to use the WYSIWYG
> editor, ya know." Thankfully, my mentor *insisted* I do her projects via a text
> editor, so I would learn HTML, not just the FrontPage tool.
> 
> This was wise move, for at the time, FrontPage generated crappy HTML (I didn't
> know it at the time, because I was not looking at what HTML was being generated
> by FP, but my mentor *was*. Hand-editing was needed most times, and sometimes
> the HTML/Javascript would not parse back into the FP WYSIWYG environment(!). 
> 
> Game over.
> 
> Without the knowledge of HTML, I would not be able to get things working, nor
> would I be able to continue a project 'outside' of the 'tool'. Those web dev
> pro's that knew only how to use FP, spent most of their time on the phone with
> M$ T/Support when the FP tool failed, as they never bothered to learn HTML (took
> too much time). Ditto the same lesson for tools such as Visual Cafe for Java
> (learn to develop Java code first!). 
> 
> I've noticed with Red Hat's new printer configuration tool.. a note not to alter
> the printcap file manually. Shades of GUI-based tool mindset again. Wonder how
> long until the attitude (from RH) will be 'why are you manually configuring you
> system?' or 'Why do you want to understand what our GUI-tool is doing?" (heard
> that already). Got tired of hearing this from M$, so I left that development
> platform.
> 
> So, while Wizards (Internet Configurer) and tools (such as RPM) save time and
> effort for corporations and pro's, I've learned to never lose site of
> understanding what's happening underneath the toolset, as well as the ability to
> do the same task manually.
> 
> What's good for a corporation/industry is not necessarily good for a career or a
> hi-tech professional, yes? Distro like Debian may take longer to
> install/configure, etc. (still have apt-get :-) ) but the knowledge of how to go
> about doing things at a 'lower-level' can be invaluable, when the high-level
> tools can't/won't get the job done.
> 
> </endrant>
> 
> HTH
> 
> JimI.
> 
> 
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