On Mon, 31 Jan 2000, Thomas Charron wrote:
> Yep, but if done in an intelligent manner, a 'Linux Registry' could make
> machine configuration data, etc, easily restorable, along with offering a
> common interface to this type of data.. Heck, never mind Linux, *nix in
> general..
You still haven't answered these problems with the Windows-style massive
central configuration database:
Unportable: The Windows registry is tied to the machine it is on. I can
copy my .profile file from machine to machine without problems. Indeed, with
a networked home directory, I don't even have to copy it. It is already
there.
Unscalable: The more software you put on the machine, the bigger and more
ungainly that database becomes. It is a huge performance bottle-neck.
Umanagable: With everything in one big pile, finding a particular thing is
the proverbial needle in a hay stack. With everything living in its own file,
I can simply do an "rpm -qlc package" to find the configuration files for
"package", or "rpm -qf filename" to find the package which owns that file.
Single point of failure: If the registry dies, you reinstall Windows.
Period. How nice. Meanwhile, if I lose /etc/apache.conf, all I have to do is
reconfigure part of Apache.
One-size-fits-all-syndrome: This is very popular in the Microsoft world.
Microsoft has a product called Microsoft Foo. MS-Foo is the only Foo you'll
ever need. MS-Foo does everything every other Foo does, and more. Everyone
from a your grandmother to the IRS should use MS-Foo for their Foo needs.
A big part of why I like Linux (and Unix in general) is that, by and large,
they realize that one size does *not* fit all. Unix provides the component
parts. I can choose the best parts for the job. Nobody is trying to *force*
me to use C++ to implement shell aliases, nor do I have to write a 5000-line
program in sed.
As I said, a standard library to handle configuration data is something that
sounds very useful. The format might be Microsoft-style .INI files, something
based on XML, or maybe something that looks like a shell script. Maybe three
libraries, one for each. But what we don't need is a Big Monolithic
Organization saying "Thou shalt use this format."
I also get a chuckle out of your assertion that a central registry makes
configuration data easily restorable. One of my biggest griefs with Windows
is that I cannot just backup all the files on the hard disk to backup my
applications. Configuration data is stored in the registry. The registry is
tied to the machine. If that machine dies, I cannot simply restore a copy of
the registry, because the new system will have a different configuration.
Hooray! I get to reinstall all my applications *again*! What fun!
(Hmm, I better be careful, or I'll cut in on Paul's sarcasm service. ;)
--
Ben Scott
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