From: bengtl@maths.lth.se (Bengt Larsson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: Question for net.views column in UNIX Today!
Date: 17 Apr 92 11:06:07 GMT
Organization: Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden

In article <1992Apr15.171508.13582@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> robm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool) writes:

>I think you need to stop and think about what you're saying for a minute. 
>  Windows 3.1 is hardly a "no-configure, right out of the box" sort of deal.
>  If it was, or anything was, for you, then I am happy for you. But this is
>  a wild fantasy shared by many people I've read, that one day computers will
>  be infinitely powerful yet with the simplicity and ease of use that 
>  everything will work smoothly, on the first try, with no hitches. 

My point is that you could make the effort. Things like introducing
users with a login dialog like the one I described (and then following
it up with help etc.) are very simple measures. I don't think you
should underestimate the market impact of it

>I don't really think anything, including the Mac (though it's close), is like 
>  that. 

That's a good point, because I was really imagining something like the Mac,
but with real multiuser capability.

>  While Windows and the Mac are more intuitive in some areas than UNIX 
>  like configuration, etc., it still often takes some amazing backflips and 
>  headaches to get everything working smoothly or working at all. And have 
>  you ever seen an office full of people with business-related things to do 
>  trying to figure out why WordPerfect won't print? 

Do you mean the DOS or the Windows version? (they have a Mac version too,
don't they?)

>Have an "admin" account 
>  for people to configure stuff? What will they do when they buy their 
>  third-party vendor hard drive that needs specific installation stuff? 

Get someone to do it for them. What else? 

And from what I hear it isn't that hard to hook up a third party disk
to something like the Mac. But I've never done it so feel free to
correct me. 

>Or if 
>  it gives them errors? Call tech support every ten two or three days when 
>  something goes wrong?

Why not? What I am talking about is the now-needed, extremely techie
Unix administrator.  You would need someone to be the "admin" anyway.
But you could make things as easy possible for that person. For real
wizardry you'd have to call the support people. 

>: What I mean is that I would like to have a more usable interface to
>: the Unix core, instead of having to edit shell scripts and configuration
>: files etc. A standard interface, preferrably. If Windows NT will bring
>: nothing else, it may bring that.
>
>So would everybody, it seems. I happen to like the NeXT interface for a simple
>  interface to the beast of UNIX. 

I haven't used it, but I meant an interface to the Unix kernel,
without shell utilities, sed awk, shells etc. 

>A good example of why this will not work is
>  SGI's sysadmin utilities. They're fine for adding users, and other simple
>  stuff like that, but what if you want to set up DNS? 

Do you mean as a domain server or as a client? Setting up a domain
server the first time may take some work, but adding and deleting
clients etc. could be made very easy. 

>Sendmail.cf? 

There are other things you could do besides sendmail.

>And how do
>  I tell it to use the BSD lpr utilities instead of the SysV lp stuff without
>  going to the command line?

I guess that depends on why you would want to select either interface.

>NeXT has a good interface, and for many users,
>  they don't even have to see the command line, but for a lot of stuff you 
>  still need to.

I'd be very interested if you would share opinions on what the NeXT
interface doesn't handle.

>I still like a Sun or an SGI over a NeXT any day. I don't know what the best 
>  UNIX interface will be, but I'd say Windows NT will most likely not float 
>  the boat. At least, not for me. IMNSHO.

Very possible. But you are a system administrator. There are lots of
other kinds of people out there. 

No offense, but did you mean this for your personal use, for
your use as a systems administrator, or for the users? 

Bengt Larsson.
-- 
Bengt Larsson - bengtl@maths.lth.se
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin