Re: Life after LinuxConf

On Thu Mar 13 2003 at 15:49, "Keith Mastin" wrote:

> >> Hi Alex,

ohmy, more top-posting <sigh>.  So the logical flow of my reply is
broken.

> >> > Thanks Keith ... So all has to be made manualy :) No replacement for
> >> LinuxConf ???

For the record:  yes, there are replacements for linuxconf, all the
redhat-* configuration tools (as from at least rh7.2 onwards).

(Go to a bash shell, type "redhat-" and then press tab once or
twice).

BTW, I very rarely use them myself (but at least they are modular
and, as they are built and maintained by redhat, are known to work).

> >> ... Jacques stopped development work on linuxconf long before redhat
> >> caught on that it doesn't work. It's too complex to try to make an
> >> all-in-one solution when the devel cycle of the software it's supposed
> >> to configure follows moore's law better than the hardware does.

And besides that, linuxconf has *never* done a good job.  It has
frequently smashed many of my hard-worked configuration files and
done other ugly things behind my back.

Redhat dropped linuxconf for very good reasons, I strongly advise
you to follow their lead and leave it well alone.

> > at http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/
> > the latest linuxconf (1.30r3) is available, release date,
> > 2003-02-24 13:49:44 . It appears to support
> > RH 7.x and 8.x

ohmygohd, I wouldn't trust using it on a redhat box, no matter what
the version or what it "appears" to support.

> ... boy, talk about egg on my face. I remember talking to Jacques in

heh, don't worry... let me wipe it all off for you :-)

> December of '99 and he was packing it in then, said it's not worth

I wish he did pack it in.

No slight on Jacques, btw.  imho linuxconf was an overly ambitious
project that was just too unwieldly due to its aim to do all things
for all situations.  It is a swiss-army knife that is full of blunt
tools that don't do as good a job as the "real thing".

Much of the philosophy of linuxconf is based on the assumption that
you almost totally submit to what *it* wants you to do (not what
*you* want it to do)... it is certainly not easy (read: impossible)
to work with it if you have special tweaks and configurations on
your system.

> developing anymore, but he would still support it. We've chatted a couple

I honestly don't know why he is wasting his time - it is too much to
cope with keeping up with the constant changes with each distro
release, not to mention any changes that may happen with ongoing
updates.

Besides, it inevitably ends up breaking things or doing what you
don't want -- I've learned my lesson (several times, ouch), and I
dare not trust it again, ever.

> times since then and he never told me anything about that changing, so I
> just took it for granted that he let it go then. Ah well... sorry for the
> misleading info.

But the general advice was solid:  learn to use the command line
tools, learn to know your way around the system configuration files,
and learn how to work with the vendor-supplied configuration tools.

For redhat, /etc/sysconfig/ is a very magical place, and there is a
lot of useful information to be found in /usr/share/doc/initscripts-*/*

> Keith Mastin

Cheers
Tony
---*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-=*#*=-
 Tony Nugent <Tony*linuxworks.com.au>
 LinuxWorks  Gold Coast Qld Australia