>>> Well, yes and no.  Users of SUSE products (openSUSE and SLE*) often do
>>> know how to do the manual edits, but prefer using YaST anyways.
>>
>> If you pull up the documentation for (say) Apache, it won't tell you how
>> to use the Apache YaST module. It will tell you how to edit the
>> underlying text file.
>
> If you use openSUSE for configuration, you use the openSUSE documentation
> to see how to use YaST to make those configuration changes.

Wait - YaST has documentation?

> And if that
> doesn't get you where you need to be, you ask a question in the community.
>
> OSS is big about community.

That sounds very nice and all, but if I'm trying to quickly set 
something up, I don't really want to have to go onto the Internet and 
beg for help, and then spend a week or two hoping that somebody 
knowledgeable will just happen across my message and actually take the 
time to give me a helpful response. I want to read a manual that tells 
me how to do this RIGHT NOW.

>>>> Under Windows, the GUI is the "real" interface. The configuration data
>>>> is stored in the registry, but you're not supposed to edit it
>>>> directly.
>>>
>>> Except for when there's no other way.
>>
>> Except that this almost never happens. That's the entire point. Most
>> Linux front-ends seem to be tacked on afterwards, whereas on Windows,
>> the GUI is the primary focus.
>
> I guess I imagined all those Technet articles that have the warning I
> sited earlier about how editing the registry can screw your system up.
> That must be it, because of course Microsoft would *never* recommend you
> do something that might bork your system.

The warning is partly there because if you're a clueless user who 
doesn't know how to work a computer properly, it's very easy to do a 
hell of a lot of damage using a registry editor. Personally, I have 
almost never borked my system by editing the registry. The only time 
it's happened is when I started deleting stuff at random in a desperate 
attempt to make something work. If you follow the instructions, it works 
fine.

My point remains: It's very uncommon to /need/ to touch the registry in 
the first place. Whereas under Unix, the text configuration files are 
the first port of call, not the last. That's just the difference in 
design mentality.

>> OK. But certainly most Linux uses seem to have the opinion of "GUI? Pah!
>> We don't need that. That's just for n00bs who don't know what they're
>> doing..." (Whether this attitude applies to most /developers/ is more
>> debatable.)
>
> Obviously you don't know many Linux users.  I know at least 5,000, and
> many of them not only love and use the GUI, but tend to have religious
> wars over which GUI is better.

And yet, the vast majority of all Linux software is strictly CLI-only, 
and developers always seem to expect somebody /else/ to build the pretty 
front-end for it.

>> I notice that there's always a lot of stuff "happening" with Linux. I'm
>> never sure what the hell any of it actually /does/.
>
> Linux (and most OSS software) evolves rather than going through discrete
> cycles.

Sure. The "release early and often" approach. I'm just saying, as an 
outsider, it's not always clear what actually changed between versions. 
(I guess often it's stuff under the hood that you won't notice anyway.)

>>> Transactionality is a function of the filesystem, and I use a journaled
>>> filesystem.
>>
>> Doesn't stop two scripts both trying to update the same config file at
>> the same time. If you do that with the registry, it works. Because it's
>> a proper database engine, not just a flat file.
>
> I'm not sure how "proper" that database engine is - IIRC, it's JET, and
> most DBAs that I know would say that's certainly not a proper database
> engine.

JET is no match for an enterprise database engine, sure. But it's more 
transactional than a flat file.

Also, I'm not completely sure that the registry is actually JET. It 
might be, but I didn't think it was. For one thing, registry files grow 
as needed, but never shrink. I don't think JET has that limitation.

>> Personally, I'm not very impressed by the Windows Update system. Like,
>> it'll install a bazillion updates for IE6 in the same session as it also
>> installs IE8. And then you go back and it wants to install a bunch of
>> IE8 updates. Um, why couldn't you do that the first time around??
>
> Yep, I've been frustrated by that as well.

I'd ask if Linux gets this right - expect Linux generally won't replace 
one version of an application with a totally different one just because 
you asked for security updates...

>> I love how multiple courts have proved that what MS is doing is illegal,
>> and as a result they have received NO PUNISHMENT OF ANY KIND. That's
>> such a big motivation for them to stop casually disregarding the law...
>
> Oh, I don't know, having to admit that Firefox is a reasonable browser to
> use and they should change Windows architecturally to decouple IE from it
> (or at least loosen the coupling) is a pretty significant sanction.

Admitting you're wrong is one thing. But they did something illegal; 
where is the *financial* pain for that?

> Maintaining multiple versions of an entire operating system can be time
> and resource intensive.

Maybe it's there then. Still seems like a fairly tiny price for, you 
know, BREAKING THE LAW...

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