Date: Sat, 18 Apr 98 15:03:32 -0400 From: Stefanos Kiakas <stefanos@ringworld.uniscape.com> To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: salesman is thinking..... Message-ID: <9804181903.AA12030@ringworld.uniscape.com>
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Remy NONNENMACHER wrote:
>On Fri, 17 Apr 1998, Don Wilde wrote:
<snip>
>> Remy NONNENMACHER wrote:
>> > What FBSD needs, as a server box, is a mind change. Jordan told us what
>> > we *ARE* doing. History predicts that we *CAN'T* compete on GUI's. Time
>> > to imagine something new.
We should not compete with GUI, but it should be possible to perform
minimal tasks with a GUI tool.
>> I agree. I only suggested setting up a 'port-driven' GUI/Personal
>> Station because I thought it would be a quick (read minimum effort)
>> answer to the PC wannatryit's we get queries from. I _like_ the CLI,
>> although I'm for 18 years a programmer. BSD is driven by pipes and
>> shells and text files, to obfuscate that would be to destroy it. What we
How is placing a GUI tool as a front end destroying BSD? Take for
example adduser on FreeBSD 2.2.5. It asks you a few question, you reply, and
it creates a user. Now imagine a GUI as the input tool, a user my update the
configuration file by editing the fields and making selections with the mouse.
He may then add the user by the same process. Once he has entered the information
he clicks on a button which executes a script which will update the config file
and add a user. How is this different than the adduser script?
To show it another way
+------------------------+ +-----------------------+ +------------------+
| GUI Tool | | adduser front end | | rmuser front end |
| to: add user | | | | |
| delete user | | update config file | | |
| update config file | | add user | | |
+------------------------+ +-----------------------+ +------------------+
| | | |
| +--------------------- | ------------------------+
| | |
+-----------+--------------+ |
| |
| |
+----------------+ +--------------------+
| adduser script | | rmuser script |
+----------------+ +--------------------+
>> need to do is to make our script tools complete and orthogonal. For
>> example, aduser does all you want with adding, but where is rmuser?
>> That's what we need to do, find ll those little gotchas.
We should create the right scripts and provide both a GUI interface
and a CLI interface. Both are important for different users. Beginners will
feel comfortable using the GUI front end and experienced user can use the CLI
front end or edit the text files if they so choose.
This lack of a GUI tool for the basic day to day tasks is a big barrier
when it comes to installing FreeBSD in a small company. I know, because it
is the first thng clients ask when we propose a FreeBSD solution.
Setting up the server is not a big deal, when we install a server they
will pay us for the work, whether it is FreeBSD, Solaris, WinNT, or Novell. But
they want to be able to do trivial tasks without learning how to use the CLI.
I know! It is not difficult to use the CLI, but it does not matter to
them and they don't care, *they want a GUI*.
>
>So let's go with the Tcl/Tk,X-Forms,pure X,Xaw,xxtif,etc... war.
No let's not go with Tcl/Tk, how many versions are there? Let's go with
a WWW interface and a Java or GNUstep interface. The WWW interface will allow
the sysadmin to modify the server parameters without being at the console and
can use any OS he pleases Win98/MacOS/OS2/etc. The same could be said for Java.
I propose the GNUstep because it will be object oriented, and implement
the NeXT look and feel. This is a personal preference and if anyone feels like
discussing it please email me I don't want to take up more bandwidth on the
list with GUI discussions.
<snip>
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