Re: Still No Usable GUI Really

Still No Usable GUI Really (Score: 2, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-04 16:42 (#20P)

Yes, I know that sounds like BS from a bygone day, but as a mostly-Windows geek, every time I dive deeper into Linux, on desktop or server, I'm struck by the eventual need to go to the command line / terminal.

That's okay, for me -- I LIKE the command line and spend a fair amount of time there in Windows -- but reports to the contrary I don't see a way for a moderately technical user to avoid it under Linux. Far too many things are still VERY much dependent upon it, from daemons to drivers to fixes to patches to scheduling to startup etc. When something really goes wrong, you know the answer will not lie anywhere in the realm of the available GUI.

Sure, theoretically a user can steer apt-get or yum shells via a GUI, and can open up config files when necessary in a GUI editor, but who are we kidding? There's just no way you can live entirely in the GUI in Linux as you can in Windows, for technical or (to a lesser degree) non-technical users.

On the server side of course it's FAR worse. Using something like WebMin one inevitably ends up resorting to the command line fairly often.

Sure, every OS is just a thin veneer over what's going on underneath, and GUIs more so, but that surface is still too thin and shatterable in Linux distributions and desktops. My favorite desktop is KDE, and many distros shun it!

Re: Still No Usable GUI Really (Score: 2, Informative)

by billshooterofbul@pipedot.org on 2014-06-09 11:34 (#219)

Wow, I was kind of with you, until you suggusted servers should have guis.

I mean, maybe your right about moderate tech users not being able to do everything on a desktop via gui. I would suggust they were better off learning bash & related tools if they are going to call themselves moderately technical.

BUT NO GUIS ON SERVERS!!!!

Re: Still No Usable GUI Really (Score: 1)

by engblom@pipedot.org on 2014-06-10 09:43 (#21J)

I fully agree. GUI and servers have nothing to do with each other. I am all for GUI "control panels" for the normal home user, as Linux will not succeed if the normal user is not able to change some settings in their own computers.

As a server administrator I would hate GUI for servers. Instead I use a combination of scripting, salt-stack and direct ssh contact. Lets take this trivial case: In the fall when the schools begin, I end up creating user accounts for every single new student. I receive name lists. Those list I format into the way I want (sed/vim). Then I run the lists trough a script I made which will create random password, make their home directories and set up everything right for them. Out I get a csv file containing their usernames and passwords. That csv file I can use in any office application. How do you do that efficiently by GUI?

It is not a coincidence PowerShell appeared in Windows. Any administrator not able to script is pretty much a worthless administrator. A such person is wasting time (=money) by doing over and over the same task. Mistakes will creep in here and there as with any repeated task.

Another case: Lets say a service has hung. Now I am able even with my phone and a simple ssh client to take remote connection and restart the service. As soon you have GUI and VNC/RDP/Whatever GUI you need more bandwith and working over a slow mobile connection might be almost impossible. Take then screen size also into account.

Re: Still No Usable GUI Really (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-06-11 01:55 (#21T)

Huh? Why would a properly written GUI admin interface be any less capable of importing and acting on your new user file than your script would be? Why would a GUI admin interface, for that matter, be incapable of itself being scripted to customize actions for the administrator?

You're describing scripting or programming a task, something that is not the exclusive domain of a terminal session or bash shell. Windows itself has a few methods of scripting, though they can suck. I've used VBS scripts for exactly the user creation process you describe.

Absolutely, stuff runs faster and more efficiently without the GUI overhead, and once one is comfortable with one's scripting environment of choice one can program things fairly well. But some things, like selecting a specific set of names (or files) from a long list and selectively moving them to a new OU (or directory) are a royal pain by command line and trivial in a GUI. Conceptualizing and managing something like an LDAP structure is far easier and more accurate in a GUI.

There are pros and cons to both interfaces. The problem, again, is that Linux doesn't even offer you the choice.

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