Desktop issues discussion proposal

[Shahms King]

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 10:01, seth vidal wrote:
> > There's also a pretty strong argument that our primary target admin is
> > going to be managing multiple systems and using kickstart, scripts, thin
> > client, RHN, or other architectures to avoid configuring them
> > one-by-one.
> 
> is it?

The strongest argument for that (IMHO) is that a single machine is just
the simplest case of multiple networked machines.  Having an
architecture that is network/multi-host aware allows it to apply equally
well to both the individual home user and the LAN sysadmin.  

> let me give you a few common examples:
> 1. prof in the dept with a laptop
> 2. my dad
> 
> both run linux. I am the 'admin' for both machines. However I do not
> have immediate access to ssh into the machine. So I have to be able to
> talk them through things. Have you ever talked someone through vim or
> emacs for editing a file in /etc? it's a nightmare.

Well, aside from the issues of both vim and emacs being really, really
unfriendly to first time users, talking someone through editing a text
config file is much easier than trying to have them navigate a UI. 
Especially since UIs have a habit of changing much more quickly than the
on-disk file format.  If I'm running FC 3 and I'm trying to guide
someone using FC 2 through a UI, the odds are pretty good it's going to
take a lot longer than just having them edit the config files by hand.
That's not counting the time it's going to take to have them find the
right application.  Even if the UI hasn't changed significantly, the
odds are almost 100% (at this point) that the menu structure will have.


> So I think there is definitely an argument for the home user to be
> editing their config files - even if those files are network
> configuration and adding a user.
> 
> -sv

I don't disagree, but this use case *should* be taken care of using the
same tools that manage multiple hosts.  Assuming the UI isn't poorly
designed, most users would have no idea that the tools they were using
could be used to manage multiple computers at the same time.
-- 
Shahms King <shahms at shahms.com>