On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:30:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>> Unix software, on the other hand, seems to regard giant text files
>>> (all with a completely different format) as the *primary* means of
>>> configuration, and a GUI as secondary to that.
>> 
>> Let me introduce you to YaST....Before I started using it, I didn't
>> like the idea of it, but now that I'm used to it, guess what - I don't
>> have to tweak all these different configuration files, because it
>> handles it for me most of the time.
> 
> The problem is, Unix has _always_ been designed around the idea that
> everything is a text file and that's how you configure the entire
> system. Sure, these days we have pretty front ends that atempt to hide
> all the complexity. But as soon as you need to edit something there
> isn't a front-end for, or the text file contains some setting that the
> fancy front-end doesn't comprehend... suddenly you need to know how all
> this stuff works again.

Allow me (again) to introduce you to YaST, or Webmin.  I've found very 
little that these two frontends won't configure properly.

> Windows, on the other hand, has always been designed around the idea
> that the user doesn't know anything about computers and needs to be
> shielded from anything more complicated than a lightswitch. Which is
> sometimes quite frustrating, in a different way...

And again, allow me to introduce you to YaST and Webmin.... ;-)

> I think XKCD sums it up nicely:
> 
> http://www.xkcd.com/619/

Full-screen flash video support has been around for a while.

Jim

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