Linux Succumbs to Creeping Windows-Itis

> I think that today's networking scripts/programs are important in order for Joe the Plumber to be able to successfully use Linux.

It's not an either/or situation. Just because some wonderful new gui widget does great things for the newbie doesn't mean it has to break your old configuration methods.

> FWIW, I fully understand TC's position as I was also frustrated for a while with it, but then I later took a step back and saw that it made most people's lives easier. I've also since given in to the new system and it mostly Just Works(tm).

I don't agree with this approach. When something goes wrong (as it frequently does) you should be able to fall back on a well documented manual configuration. Several distros (the worst offender being Ubuntu) have ripped out all the old configs in order to make things seemless but they have failed to redocument properly their new system.

The three worst offenders are imho xorg, hal and udev.

Nice new systems that work 95% of the time but when they don't you are screwed. I suppose you could ring Canonical for paid support (barf).

monte -

YYYYEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!

The ability to do that is one of the great strengths of Linux over Windows -- even with configuration hell.

You want GUIs? Fine. More power to you. Personally, I love GUIs. There are lots of things I don't do frequently enough to rapidly do via command line.

But -- Don't turn the underlying configuration files into a freakin' untouchable mess. C'mon, it doesn't take rocket science, just a little courtesy.

yes, udev has some strangeness. My Mom's laptop's ethernet port, for instance, is incremented each time she boots. It was up in the 200's, last I saw.

"udev is renaming eth0 to eth387"

> "udev is renaming eth0 to eth387"

Bob, it sounds like she has one of those onboard nvidia nics which presents a unique mac address every time it boots. There is a udev config tweak to fix that.

"There is a udev config tweak to fix that."

Thanks, I'll try to remember next time the machine is in my hands (maybe in a few years).

Quoting: There is a udev config tweak to fix that.

But what's the good news?

It's only in the fourth level, 3rd branch config file, and only on line 667 instead of mucking with 8 seperate config files scattered all over the system somewhere.

oh yeah, then recompile from a specific version of source code that was deprecated 2 years ago in an attempt to fix this very issue. Other wise, just live with it.

@dino:

Which sheeple? The ones that spend million$ on the execrable crap from Redmond and the slightly less execrable cr@p from Cupertino. The fact that they are willing to spend such exorbitant wads of cash on such poor quality tells me they are cowardly sheeple who will do whatever they're told.

So what should I do?

Gus, just using MS does not a sheeple make, listening to what any 'true believer' says without a modicum of credulity is a much better guage of what makes a sheeple.

> sheeple

.....must...not....reply....must.....stay.....on....topic....

/me stirs Bob up to the frothing point

"The liberals are coming, the liberals are coming"

/me waits for Bob to explode

> But what's the good news?

The fact that it all still just works - despite a corner case with a quirky ethernet card!

@az:

I didn't say anything about "using." I'm talking about actually spending (wasting) money on the stuff.

Quoting: "The liberals are coming, the liberals are coming"

Too late, we're here! Hahaaa!

> "The liberals are coming"

I don't mind people who are liberal with their views, their ideas, their own money.

If not for "liberal" people, we'd have no Linux.

In fact, it's perfectly reasonable to call me a classical liberal.

gus3 --

But this thread is about LINUX not windows. The only sheeple to point at are FOSS developers.

TC -

Yeah, we've drawn you all out into the open now. Go ahead and get cocky, but sleep with one eye open...

@dino:

Which sells: (1) The power of life and death over one's own system, or (2) Giving that power to someone else?

MS and Apple sales figures show, conclusively, it's the latter. Ubuntu is merely following suit.

(pun convenient)

>Ubuntu is merely following suit.

Needlessly, because the two are not at odds with each other.

That's why it pisses me off so much, to surrender a significant strength for nothing.

You might want to install etckeeper. It's a nice package that puts /etc in a repository (usually git) and commits changes after each apt-get action.

Regarding config file mess, I think it's usually done to make it easier to do automatic changes. You know how hellish hard it is to make even the simplest scripted changes to a single, large, monolithic configuration behemoth, right? Things like "remove the part that was added by this package, along with local changes, and nothing more"?

In some cases I find it easier to work with multiple files as well. No more mucking about in a giant configfile. Just drop a simple shoft file in a conf.d/ directory and you're done. It really depends on how you work with the files. If you know what you're looking for (e.g. a specific setting) then it's easier to have multiple files. If you're reviewing the configuation as a whole then a single file would probably be easier.

Regarding the author's comments on network-manager, I call "Boo". The entire point of NM is that it works automagically. If you run NM then don't touch your interfaces configuration, and if you want to muck about with it manually, then remove NM. It's either-or... or so it used to be. I noticed on Debian Etch when you edited the interfaces file, NM would throw a hissy fit and start arguing. I noticed now with Lenny that when you edit the interfaces config for a specific interface, it removes that interface from NM control. All other interfaces will stay under NM control.

The author does have a point with udev/hal/etcetera configuration. It's pretty much impossible to touch it without breaking a whole lot of stuff. I used to have a problem on my computer that, when two people were logged in at the same time, it would assign USB sticks and CDs to the wrong user. I tried to resolve that but gave up after a day or so.

Further on NM: I hate that thing so every install I rip it out and install wicd instead. This has a straightforward and informative interface and in my experience wicd is much more stable and logical than NM.

I have to admit, I really like NM in Ubuntu 8.10. My WPA2 problems are gone and it supports both my 3G-CDMA and OpenVPN. I'm pretty happy with it.

On the subject of Wireless on Linux. Mandriva uses two applications drakconnect which requires root password to access, and allows the setting up of network connections, and drakroam which is run from the user account and allows switching between networks. Both work very well and are quite simple to use.