[plug] Registry info

[Paul Wilson]

I think there are two different issues here -- (1) a user friendly method of
updating the system configuration, and (2) putting the system configuration
somewhere other than it's current variety of locations.

Before anyone starts reinventing the Win-9x registry, don't forget that not
all Linux users have X windows running. I have 2 Linux machines, only one of
which uses X (paradoxically, it's the elder of the two, but that's not
particularly important), so a purely X interface to a newly (and properly)
designed registry would piss me off mightily.

Also, UNIX was designed deliberately to have ASCII files for system
configuration so that if something major goes wrong you can drop into Admin
mode, mount the errant filesystem somewhere and make changes/recover using
little other than vi and a small handfull of standard tools. Anyone who
starts playing database (which is all that a registry is) with all the
system configs is moving against that philosophy, and potentially lining
trouble up for later.

Personally, I'd go for leaving the config files where they are and writing a
set of common and consistant looking/behaving tools to access them. Being a
Perl bigot, I'd go for the web server/CGI script approach as well. It's an
approach which is used already in similar circumstances (Netscape use a
modified version of Apache to manage their Enterprise server, for example),
and it's not that hard to design a consistant interface and pattern of
behaviour.  That way, those who chose to work the old fashioned way can
still do so, and those who ache for a MickeySoft style control panel can
have one.

Best of both worlds, surely?

Paul

> Afterthoughts...
>
> I've been thinking about Jamie Zawinski's (sp?) comments on GNU/Linux.
> He made the point that linux sucks, it just sucks less than the rest.
> His main gripe was that the operating system required it's users to be
> system administrators. I'm a programmer myself, and thus a 'power user',
> but I'm certainly not a system administrator. Anything that would make
> admin easier would be desirable.
>
> Appart from the technical issues (for instance, the registry would have
> to be able to be rebuilt automagicaly should corruption occur), there is
> a definite community issue that needs to be addressed.
>
> The delegate and conquor approach that linux uses may be a hinderance in
> pulling together the community around a new OS standard, no matter how
> brilliant it is. Whilst linus is in charge of the kernel, on the whole
> our operating system's development is entirely decentralised. I wonder
> how we would going about building a system for which support could be
> implemented incrementaly as each component came into line. We're all
> quite familiar with the painful progress from libc to glibc, and the
> stuborness of some distributions to change, but I'm also of the view
> that Linux truely needs to evolve, and compatibility will suffer at
> certain points in development where adaptation won over as a greater
> priority.
>
> My $0.022. :-)
>
> Tom Atkinson wrote:
> >
> > Oliver,
> >
> > The biggest thing about such a scheme, and the reason it is important
> > for Unix/Linux, is that it makes administration of the system
> > considerably easier.
>
> --
> Oliver White
>