Wake Up and Smell the Coffee It's Not 1970! (or is it?)

[Robert W. Current]

Greg Hayes wrote:

<-snip to point, other comments addressed privately->
> So, I guess making a box administerable from something besides the
> command line is bloat? You really are a strange individual.

I think there are more people than me that believe command line
administration is the layer you end up dealing with when there is a real
administration problem on a system.

But, regarding that, then is linuxconf suppose to be "the GUI tool"
then?  If GUI is needed for admin, what tools do you trust enough to
justify the need GUI?

> With the HD
> space that ships with servers today having X is not a big deal.

Untrue.  Several smaller companies will delegate older systems to
specialized roles, taking some of the unnecessary workload off of the
one or two "good new systems" they can afford to keep.  A standard
should span across all systems a group uses in order to be useful.

> Also,
> attempting to train a large first level support staff on administering
> from the console is not always economical (and often dangerous :) ). I
> think your idea of he LSB is a throwback to the days of the 386,

Again, it's not looking back, it's looking forward.  Linux is entering a
much broader market than desktop and "do it all server."  Devices,
appliances, lots of new "little" things that don't even work from a
traditional hard drive.  Linux on a Flash Disk is a reality that is just
coming into it's own.  Systems that NFS mount almost everything
(including X) are becoming far more common (but, now bandwidth limited).

One box doesn't and shouldn't do it all in a correctly working network. 
The networking ideas of different boxes doing different functions does
date back to the 70's, but it's only now maturing in Linux, and I see no
reason to impose a inflexible base set on the diverse rolls of these
systems.

I guess to get to the point, why not just make it an X layer on top of a
base set?  I have absolutely no problem with that.  It would still
accomplish what everyone claims "most" ISVs want, and not exclude the
ones that don't need/want it.

> that
> would be fine and dandy if a large portion of people simply couldn't
> take any more than a kernel and shell, but lets get real... that is not
> the case! It's no longer the day of command line only!

Well, that's not what I suggest.  Actually, the idea of "a clearly
defined core" that includes very little but the kernel and shell does
appeal to me.  But, I what I am suggesting is beyond a "core," include
stuff for a base system, but leave X as an optional layer on top of
that.