From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 23 10:07:51 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA21971 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:07:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gershwin.tera.com (gershwin.tera.com [207.224.230.28]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA21951 for ; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:07:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@tao.thought.org) Received: from tao.thought.org (tao.tera.com [207.108.223.55]) by gershwin.tera.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA14610; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:07:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from kline@localhost) by tao.thought.org (8.8.8/8.7.3) id KAA04525; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:07:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary Kline Message-Id: <199806231707.KAA04525@tao.thought.org> Subject: Re: Adding a new user interface to FreeBSD administration In-Reply-To: from Peter van Heusden at "Jun 23, 98 05:47:00 pm" To: pvh@leftside.wcape.school.za (Peter van Heusden) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:07:01 -0700 (PDT) Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Organization: <> thought.org: public access uNix in service... <> X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL32 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG According to Peter van Heusden: > Having recently worked on a WWW oriented user interface for FreeBSD, and > looked at some recent work on similar projects, I've been thinking about > the problems of providing an alternative interface to configuring FreeBSD > (alternative to vi, that is). > [[ ... ]] Having set up tip, uucp, and much more by-hand many times over the years, I'll say straight away that having some plug-and-Work alternative would've gotten my vote. Long ago. You already understand the complexities, so I won't belabor the evident. I'll offer this, tho: that your interface have tk* (tkperl|tk//tcl) that would let people enter vi anywhere. Also that it be flexible enough to be ported to SCO and Linux and WhateverFlavor of unix people choose. I used SVR4 for several years before returning to my BSD roots, but then installed Debian Linux and faced the problems of re-familiarizing myself with the System-5 methods. Having a configuration tool that works across models would be a win; as a long-term goal. Short-term, I think that flexibility is a major objective. gary -- Gary D. Kline kline@tao.thought.org Public service uNix To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message