also sprach Jon Trygve Utne (on Mon, 08 Jan 2001 05:18:34PM +0100):
Look, I've been where you are, but I haven't got the time anymore to deal with details like that. I have a _lot_ of systems to maintain, and as time goes by, less and less of my time is spent on pure UNIX system administration. My time is spent at the application level, or planning or designing for new projects in the bank I work for. So my feeling is that if you use Linux/UNIX to do some actual _work_ SuSE's design/layout is great. If you are more interested in the "pure" OS functionality in itself or something, then perhaps another distro is better for you.
sure. i am still in the learning phase, being a student and all that. so right now i would like to get my fundaments down at the os and deep down levels of intricacies and operation. i know that once i actually get some real _work_, i won't be doing that anymore. so now is the time to learn linux inside out. later is the time for YaST. i am just to revolutionary right now :)
(BTW, if this sounds like I'm negative to your motives or interests, I truly am not. I'm just trying to tell you that the conclusion on whether something is "good" or "bad" depends a great deal on what the _purpose_ of the system is. To draw parallels between SuSE and M$ because of their admin tools couldn't be less fair.)
yup, no worries. no offense taken. what i meant with comparing suse to m$ is merely that YaST doesn't (and cannot) allow every aspect of administration. not even /etc/rc.config allows control of every single detail. both of these provide a unified way of central administration at the expense of obfuscation. that's where the parallels are between this approach and m$ - because in m$, you just never get a real clue on routing tables unless you use the route.exe tool rather than the GUI. everything's automatic in windoze and there are too many aspects in windoze networking that you would never think about, be able to configure, or actually configure because the GUI hides them. i am sorry for having offended suse by comparing them to the biggest joke of the computer industry in terms of concepts, but the comparison stands in exactly the point i just illustrated. martin [greetings from the heart of the sun]# echo madduck@!#:1:s@\@@@.net -- don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.