the registry

[Edward]

Kenneth Porter wrote:

<SNIP>

> The registry is sort of like a filesystem, with a similar hierarchical 
> structure. The hierarchy is reasonably laid out, and one can usually 
> find what one needs in it as rapidly as one can find equivalent settings 
> in the Linux /etc and home dotfile trees. In fact, I'd say that /etc is 
> rather chaotic and organic and could use some of the structure one 
> currently finds in Window's HKLM and HKR hives.

You cannot be serious. The day Linux makes me look for some obscure 
setting under {079ACDF2-9218-45CC-B735-AF459E25BC67}\00 is the day I 
give up on computers. Yes I need to tweak Windows sometimes, and have 
delved the registry on numerous (unwanted) times and to say that a 
structure like that, where everything is repeated under different parent 
keys, is NORMAL, then calling /etc chaotic is beyond my comprehension. I 
had a ghastly nightmare like that when I had to delete all 
symantec/norton related keys from my registry. Glad it has a find 
command, but it still took close to an hour searching, then deleting, 
then searching etc. It looked like a bloody maze in there and I thought 
I'd never get out. I'm not going to flame you, I firmly believe everyone 
has their own opinion, but what you said simply scared me.

However, I DO strongly agree that all configuration files should be 
stored in a single directory. Some are directly under /etc, some under 
sub directories of that, and sub directories of something else.

I'm on FC1 and without the locate command, I don't think I would have 
found up2date's sources file without wasting 30 minutes looking.

That is something we both do agree on.

Regards,
Ed.