On Wed, 4 Jun 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I think we differ in philosophy. It's nice to think in terms of > tailoring a system by tweaking files here and there and loading or > removing individual modules, but that's not reality. We don't have > offices filled with professional system administrators to configure > these systems and keep them running. > > Linux is an end-user product. It's purchased off the shelf by > average people who take it home and expect it to work. In this > environment, multiple support files are very dangerous. It's too > easy to contaminate the configuration, over time and system upgrades, > particularly when performed by users with limited technical skills. > > From a product support perspective, it's much easier to ask a user > for the version of one file than to try to track down versions of a > dozen different ones. Complexity translates into money. Support > costs are a significant expense for software vendors. > > You're looking at the question from the inside out, as an OS > developer. I think you could benefit from a reverse perspective, > from the standpoint of the peripheral manufacturers and driver > developers. They have very different concerns. > > Just some thoughts.
Actually, I kind of agree with you. The sad fact is that no one has come up with a really satisfactory way of simplifying system administration tasks for the user. The approach of the more popular operating systems is to present a nice-looking user interface which works fine most of the time but is insufficiently powerful when something unusual comes up or things go wrong. Coupled with the way they hide and fail to document the way in which the settings are handled internally, it's not good enough for me (and maybe lots of other Linux developers). No doubt people are working on other ways to do solve this problem. In the end, I don't see the user's administrative interface to the system as being directly determined by the way in which the kernel implements its internal mechanism and policy. A nice GUI program can manipulate hotplug configuration files as easily as it can load driver modules. Alan Stern ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The best thread debugger on the planet. Designed with thread debugging features you've never dreamed of, try TotalView 6 free at www.etnus.com. _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
