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More on KDE Groupware
e8johan writes "The KDE PIM Team will integrate all their applications into one common interface and create an Outlook-like application.This is being done in the Kroupware project commissioned by the German government. There is a prototype of KOrganizer with KMain embedded into it (shots 1, 2), and another prototype with KMain running as a KPart in Kaplan (shot 1, 2, 3). This looks hopeful and if they manage to build the application as flexible and modular as other KDE projects this will hopefully mature into something great." Kroupware is a catchy name, but I wonder if the KDE team is aware of the English word croup.
This is exactly what KDE needs. Best of luck to the PIM teams because this is the final piece of the KDE on the desktop puzzle that businesses need to supplant outlook/exchange. If it hooks into a nice backend as easily as Outlook does to exchange then we're looking at a contendor.
Have a Happy.
I'm a kde user but I also use evolution. Why would I want to switch to Kroupware when evolution already does this and has the ability to connect to exchange servers? Aren't KDE and Gnome already redundant enough?
So much precious OOS developer time wasted on reinventing the wheel.
Imagine if we have a KDE compatible/look like evolution, we can save so much time in redoing just another outlook client - kaplan, which is basically the same thing as evolution.
I dont ever need to use two PIM client (outlook clone) that has identical functionality but with two different set of configuration files and stores my information differently.
why would anyone want anything along the lines of outlook? If I want mail, I'll use a mail program. If I wan't a calendar or planner, i'll use a program that does those things. Having a giant program that sucks and does a billion things you probably don't want or need isn't the answer...just because people are used to it doesnt make it a good program or idea.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I've been seeing people say 'this is the last step' or similar things, about some type of 'outlook killer' app for Linux. It won't be the last step. By the time there is something that is workable/usable for the majority of companies, there will be some other roadblock/obstacle which people start saying 'we have to have or we can't switch'. I'm not saying I necessarily even know what that is at this point, but it'll happen.
First it was web browsers.
Then an office suite.
Now an 'outlook' killer.
What next? `
Personal security/prefs setting ala 'passport'? Though that hasn't seemed to have taken off as pervasively (or publicly) as might have been. Honestly I can't think of what it might be, but there'll no doubt be some other area of corporate culture MS gets embedded into quickly, which will take years to wean people away from (if in fact they want to get weaned away - if it works for them, just let it be).
creation science book
Kroupware is a catchy name, but I wonder if the KDE team is aware of the English word croup.
;-)
Hmmmmm.....
A viral disease, often caused by..
Well, it _is_ supposed to be an Outlook replacement, isn't it?
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
...It refers to a portion of the back end of a horse. This makes it quite appropriate for an all-in-one "Outlook-like" application.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is so freakin' cool. Kmail has been my email client of choice for two years now, and I would love to use both kmail and korganizer without switching from window to window.
The fact that all this is going to tie into a non-proprietary groupware backend is icing on the cake for me. The company I work for has been interested in groupware for some time, and I can finally stop fending off the requests for MS Exchange from our Sales dept.
--Wulfhere
-- Sent from a computer.
It's been pointed out to them and they've explained that it's a working name, not a final decision.
Meanwhile, I've tried to suggest that the developers of the Perl/QT user interface compiler choose a less disgusting name than "puic" ...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
KDE development is bound to hit a brickwall in a couple of years, as they're only so many nouns in english that begin with "K".
-- por uma vida + open source
A project like this may be nice for all-linux companies, but it's ultimately meaningless in the big picture unless it implements standard protocols (or, in case there aren't any, microsoft protocols).
The thing that bothers me about
applications/desktops/wm's/etc
that are made to look exactly like
microsoft applications is that it
only fuels the argument that no
actual innovation is happening.
There seems to be too much
emphasis on making things as
pretty and familiar as possible
for the annoyed windows user looking
to migrate, and less emphasis on
making something unique and earth
shatteringly ground breaking. I'd
think it would be more important to
make something that is so much
better that it's forgone conclusion
as to whether or not you want to bother
playing with it.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Is it the governments job to take tax-money payed by all of us and put them into projects that competes (unfairly) with the products we make?
Is the government supposed to squander our tax money on over-priced software produced by a company constantly in court due to anticompetitive business practices and abuse of its monopoly? I see where you're coming from but it's not that simple. Frankly I'd rather compete against open source apps in a truly open market than compete with microsoft.
The different "modules", i.e. the mailer part, the calendering part, etc, are implemented as KParts. This means that you will be able to specify which KPart you want to embed for what functions (similar to how you can choose which text editing widget you want to use, KVim as Konqueror's textarea anyone?).
:)
It also means it is mostly "just" a shell around existing components, not another re-invented wheel. Not more bloated than running the components seperately (probably less overhead even, because you only need one KApplication instance).
In a sense it is tying existing technologies together (think back-end here too, using Open Source tech) into a slick package.
You don't *have* to use it, but corporate settings will probably like it.
As for your tax money (you live in Germany?) paying for the development, would you rather see the money go to Microsoft and get a product in return which will need upgrading eventually? Oh, and *you* personally don't get anything out of it, whereas now you get to use this development to your heart's content. And even if you don't like to use it personally, you'll be able to deploy it for your clients so they can at least use open technology).
To loosely quote Miguel de Icaza: it's not about making money, it's about *solving the problem*.
Personally, I'd happily pay 1% extra taxes to Germany (and I don't even live there!) to be used on similar projects because they benefit *everyone* (read below before you say "except software companies").
You see, times change. It used to be good business selling boxed software, but it's becoming less and less so. The trick now lies in providing a *service*. There will always be a need for skilled IT people, but to provide services, not simply products. I.e. a company specifies what their infrastructure needs to do, what requirements there are, etc, and you implement it using open source technology. There are no purchase or license fees (apart from specialised high-end software) and the value is in how well you set things up. It works for me
You said to wake you up...
From the link in the article...Kolab is the name of the server component.
Archetecture Paper
Once again a /. comment that goes off ranting without folowing any of the links in the story...
Aethera is out there and I barely understand why the KDE folks don't put their full effort behind it instead of rolling their own.
_ _
I barely understand this because it is not officially a KDE program but a QT program. Still, how many times does that darn wheel need re-inventing?
If the source is available shouldn't there be a way to get the program to tie into KDE better as opposed to figuring out a whole new approach?
Does anyone know the reasoning behind this?
_______________________________________________
ACK
Kroupier? they could use cool casino graphics.
sulli
RTFJ.
--
(Note: the rest of my
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
I hope you aren't insinuating that they should develop something similar to the
Exchange configuration... As much as I hate sendmail(I prefer qmail's
minimalism) and sendmail.cf Turing-complete rule system; I'll take it any day
over the nightmare that is configuring Exchange.
If you can't remember what each file is for, and you are unable to use vi to
edit the configuration files, then you shouldn't be allowed to touch them any
way.
Email server, calendar server, etc. should be administrated by *professional*
system administrators that are supposed to know their stuff, there are few
things more dangerous than a incompetent/ignorant MCSE sysadmin that the only
thing he knows is how to follow wizards and reset the computer when it crashes.
If you can't edit a damn text file, you can't administer any production grade
box.
I'm all for simplicity of configuration systems, but that means text files with
sane, consistent, flexible *and* powerful syntax.
And no, I don't mean XML.
Best wishes
\\Uriel
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
"Here in Canada, when we want to imply that society is racist/fascist (KKK like) we spell it Kanada."
This is true, but the KDE people don't seem to accept that. Bill Klinton, Amerika, etc, changing a C into a K gives it a racist/fascist overtone.
There is a subtle difference between competition and pure redundancy. Competition is good because it "raises the bar" of some quantity such as quality, price, value, features, etc. But for two things to be competing, they must be different in some fundamental way.
Two pieces of software that are virtually identical except for their GUI toolkit are not competitive, they are redundant.
Now, we don't know exactly how this Kroupware will come out, so we really don't know yet whether it will be competitive or redundant. If it's basically just Evolution written to the QT toolkit and KDE libs, then it will be redundant; if it (hopefully) offers something distinctive and raises the bar for Linux groupware, then it will be competitive.
After all, it is a lot harder to build a GUI interface that does syntax/sanity checking, etc. than to call the user lazy/stupid/trained monkey.
I skimmed through the architechture paper, and I didn't see much about calendaring on the server. From the specs:
or other imporant Linux functions started relying on Gnome or KDE, it would be the beginning of the end for Linux--because it would then really start being just like Windows.
And why would this be the end of Linux? It might be the end of egotistical elitest Linux hippie types, as any and everyone would be able to use it rather than just the 1337 few but, it wouldn't be the end of Linux. In fact, if Linux were exactly like Windows, do you think that anyone would ever again PAY for Windows? This is exactly what Microsoft fears the most from Linux. If it does get to be the same as Windows, no one will shell out US$300 for a copy of Windows XP whatever when they can down load the "same thing"(Linux) for free.
Indeed, if Linux were to become the same as Windows, it would be a crushing blow to Microsoft, not Linux. BillG can't sell his product against the same thing for free. If Linux were being made by a company and sold for even only US$5 a pop, Microsoft wouldn't be worried. In that case they could afford to give Windows away, just long enought to put that company out of business and then Microsoft could return to charging thier usual prices. But, Linux is totally free. Forever! Microsoft can't compete against that and BillG knows it. So, he must instead make Windows better and point out the shortcomings of Linux to make people want to spend big bucks on his overpriced OS.
The fact is however, that Linux is not becoming the same as Windows. Linux is very different from Windows and that is part of the reason that so many people presently fear using it. But, the KDE and Gnome interfaces to Linux are becoming more Windows like everyday. This is a good thing as it will hide the differences and complexities of Linux from people who do not know, care or want to think about what's underneath. Instead, it will present them with an interface that 99% of the computer using population is already familiar and comfortable with. They will be far less fearful and far more likely to give Linux a try. Then they will think, "I can spend US$300 for MS Windows or I can have the "same thing" for free?!?!?!?!? Hmmmm....."
If you're a developer and are not interested in the needs of your end users . . . well, let's just say you better work for a company with good management.
But what's even better is that Kroupware will offer an Outlook-compatible alternative for MS Exchange. Many companies already running Linux on servers will use it - and will also make desktop-Linux possible in their organization.
In countries where users are not scared away by RedHat/Gnome, Linux is already making inroads on the desktop (for example non-technical German usegroups already have a 5 - 15% share of Linux-posters. Of course those are not representative for all computer users, but it shows that Linux is already used by A LOT of people on the desktop.), this will fuel the adaption even more.
I think it's pretty realistic that Microsoft will lose their domination outside of USA within the next 3 years. (Of course the majority will still run Windows, but Linux will no longer be neglectible - which means game companies will have to offer games, business companies will port their apps - no more MS domination. I'd say about 25 to 30% Linux marketshare is needed to break this domination.)
The biggest problem with this is RPC over TCP-IP. Someone figures that out, then we can interface with anything from M$.
Or did you mean the functionality of Outlook and Project?
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Exchange goes far beyond what you describe. First by centralizing these functions it makes it easier to manage the single application, rather than several different ones. Backups are a breeze.
The calendaring goes beyond what you describe. Not only can you receive a meeting invitation, you can also share calendars or entire mail boxes. This is a common practice, where managers will share their calendar or mailbox with a secretary so that the secretary can perform various functions, like setting appointments, for the manager while they are out of the office. If you call and would like an appointment with the manager, you will more likely get his secretary who, if they are using Exchange, can look at his calendar and tell you when he would be available for such an appointment. Then the secretary can register the appointment in the manager's Outlook calendar. Beyond that still, even if you do not care to share a calendar with anyone, people who wish to schedule meetings with you can immediately see if any and all of the meeting participants are available at that particular time. They cannot see what is on the calendar but, they can see that you have something scheduled and are unavailable at the time they are trying to schedule the meeting for. This makes meeting scheduling much faster than the older method of offering several different times to various participants and hoping that they will respond and that their responses do not conflict with other meeting participants.
Then there is the additional feature of Exchange called public folders. Here you can store publicly available discussion forums, rather like USENET. Also, you can store forms, bulletin boards and any other public information that you like. You can also restrict access to these "public" areas to certain people.
Exchange 2000 also has a NNTP server built in so you can host USENET news or your own NNTP news groups.
Then there is the BIG difference. Exchange is extensible meaning that other applications can be layered on top of or integrated into Exchange. These third party applications include things like document management, voice mail, Faxing and much much more.
Don't forget, Outlook is not the same as Outlook Express and that Outlook is simply a client application. It is the Exchange server at the back end that really provides the great services that people want. Many of these service are mission critical to a LOT of businesses. Also, don't forget that although you claim not to like Outlook, the VAST majority of users like it very much. They like having everything right there in a single convenient location and for them, it just works!
Of course they would, since it would still be included in the proce of the computer. If Linux==Windows there really is no reason to switch for the vast numbers of people that think Windows comes free because they don't get an itemised bill.
Instead, it will present them with an interface that 99% of the computer using population is already familiar and comfortable with.
Yes, a shit one. You remind me of the stories of car manufacturers that spent time trying to duplicate reins instead of going over to steering wheels.
Basically what you are saying boils down to "we fear and hate change". Well, that's your problem and I don't care if you think I'm being "egotistical", "elitest" or even "1337" because I don't want you to hold me back.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The problem with that assumption is that many admins, after having mastered the initial shock of dealing with text files, find that they actually prefer them. Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes GUIs can be handy, but text files are easily version controlled, easily commented, and they make remote administration a heck of a lot easier. Not too mention that with text files you can simply copy and paste to configure new systems, and you can script changes with your favorite text-based tools.
When I first started using Linux, I used the GUIs for everything, but now I never bother with GUIs, and I know that I am not the only admin that feels that way.
As much as I hate Microsoft and dislike Outlook, I must admit that the meeting planner in Outlook is a "must have" application in business.
The one serious flaw in the planner is the human factor. All too often people wouldn't keep their calendar up to date or wouldn't bother to reply to a meeting notice.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Just run Solaris, and you'll already have CDE.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Of course they would, since it would still be included in the proce of the computer. If Linux==Windows there really is no reason to switch for the vast numbers of people that think Windows comes free because they don't get an itemised bill.
Wrong again. The user may not see the cost on their itemized bill but, Dell and HP and Gateway definitely do. If the could provide the same thing on their PCs without it costing them they could increase their profit. Or they could reduce the cost of their PC to the consumer and increase their sales.
Furthermore, what about upgrades. Case in point, my father-in-law. The other day he says, "I went into your favorite retail store the other day to see about getting a new copy of Windows. I fugured that the price must have gone down in the last cuple of years but, I was amazed to see that it costs US$199 now! Needless to say, I didn't get it."
Basically what you are saying boils down to "we fear and hate change". Well, that's your problem and I don't care if you think I'm being "egotistical", "elitest" or even "1337" because I don't want you to hold me back.
You may well be right. Perhaps 90% of the computer users out there DO fear change. After all it's human nature. But, no one is holding you back.
That's the beauty of KDE and GNome. They are totally configuarble. You can do whatever you want with them and they won't hold you back. But, by having the default install look like Windows, that 90% of the computer using population don't immediately slam their minds shut when they first see it. It is a win-win situation for everyone. Unless you're Microsoft, that is....
But what if *gasp!* I don't LIKE the Outlook philosophy. Right now, the nicest thing about KMail for me is that it is much closer to Netscape or Mozilla's mail clients, an interface that I prefer by far. I have never liked Outlooks way of doing things. Just because it's from Microsoft doesn't mean you have to mimic it. You've already got something better, don't mess with it just to make it more Microsoft-esque!
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Even better than that: you don't need to use them at all! WindowMaker keeps me happy.
I think that your father-in-law is slightly unusual. None of the Windows users I've known in the last nearly 10 years has ever bought an upgrade, they just get a new machine or make do with the version they had. And, of course, the new machines had new versions "free" with them. You are right about Dell and Gateway but their problem is not price, it's MS's muscle that stops them selling Linux machines.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Say you have 5000 users, you want to edit something about user 4932, do you really want to open up vi/pico/joe/jed/kate/emacs/nvi/staroff... the list goes on.
.. and you have 300 people in that group.. do you really want to do this over a text editor ? or could just say.. ctrl select the users, or sort them out in way, and then just drag them into the new group ?.
Yes, actually, since I would be done and on to something else before MMC even finished loading.
Back to the 5000 user system, say you want to create a group called, marketing,
How is this not 100 times worse?
You can't sort and shift click them since they aren't in a group currently.
You have to drag and drop 300 times.
Assuming you have a list of users who should go into the new group in a file called users.txt, this takes one line.
usermod -G marketing `cat users.txt`
Even if you didn't know how to do this, you could learn how and complete the job quicker than you could through MMC.
If you find text files as an easier solution, then by all means go ahead use those, I don't. And that is why I want an admin tool.
I'm sure there are cases where it actually is easier to use some sort of admin interface, but these are horrible examples, since they go directly against your point.
Croup (kr??p), n. [F. croupe hind quarters,
croup, rump, of German or Icel. origin; cf. Icel. kryppa hump; akin to Icel. kroppr. Cf. Crop.]
The hinder part or buttocks of certain quadrupeds, especially of a horse; hence, the place behind the saddle.
© Webster 1913.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
I have to say I agree. Evolution and Outlook are horribly designed. I much prefer KMail as a powerful mail client, Kabc and Korganizer being separate, but they still are capable of working together, but not all in the same window. Evolution is horrid.
Problem is, for stuff like group calendaring and a lot of other stuff kroupware is going to do, I don't think there exists any standards. On the positive side, they are basing their stuff as much as possible on open standards, IIRC most of the non-standard stuff is rather straigh-forward MIME compliant extensions to IMAP. One can only hope they succeed, thus creating a standard for others to use.
True, most of these things do already exist. The thing is that they are all INTEGRATED in Exchange 2000. I hate to say it but, "seamlessly integrated" not slapped together in a hodge podge of different applications.
Also, regarding your advice about pointing to directories... Exchange stores all of its information in a high performance database. This technique makes it much faster than a directory and file based system. Much faster! This is especially important when you are looking at information stores that support thousands of concurrent users, tied to dozens of other information stores. If this weren't true, there would be no need for Kolab. We could simply throw Postfix and Cyrus together with iCalendar and we'd be done, somewhat like Caldera/SCO does with the Volution Messaging package..
But, Kolab IS needed because, so far, nothing else compares with Exchange except Notes and GroupWise and none of them is open source.
I have the highest hopes for Kolab, the HIGHEST hopes.
I see that you are pretty close minded, you're automatically assuming that the new Admin tool which I said should be like MMC in terms of purpose, will be slow.
2. Your solution of having a list of users in a file called users.txt does not explain how the users got to that file.. and
3. I didn't say click 300 times, I said somehow have the ability to select the 300 users, and then say move them all to group marketing, this is the same amount of work needed to put your users in a users.txt file.
4. It may be easy for you, but I want to spend more time making sure the system is up and running, than reading man pages on awk and sed.
Why don't they name their groupware project Kollaborate? Makes more sense to me and stays with the krazy konvention of names.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
Yes, the same "egotistical elitist Linux hippie types" that created UNIX and Linux in the first place. I am one of them, and I am not ashamed of it.
I took refuge a little less than a decade ago in Linux from lousy Windows user interfaces and overpriced Sun workstations, and if that kind of junk follows me to the Linux platform, I have to move again.
if Linux were to become the same as Windows, it would be a crushing blow to Microsoft, not Linux. BillG can't sell his product against the same thing for free.
And why the hell would I care? If Linux becomes just like Windows, why would I care whether it comes from Bill Gates or whether it's free? What makes Linux interesting to me is that it is still different, in particular in its UI.
But, the KDE and Gnome interfaces to Linux are becoming more Windows like everyday.
As I said, as long as they don't become a core part of the Linux infrastructure, it's fine with me--it's a free country. The moment I have to run them in order to, say, configure the kernel (the new Qt-based kernel configurator is a bad step in that direction), I'm off the platform, as are many other "egotistical hippie types". Fortunately, there are still plenty of obscure, non-mainstream operating systems to go around.
No. Even Motif was much more configurable than KDE or Gnome. KDE and Gnome are basically Windows UI clones with a few more options in their "Preferences" panels. That kind of thing may have a place in this world, but don't delude yourself that it's innovative or configurable.
The $1m the German Government is paying for this; you see this was the one piece they need that allows them to run a Linux pilot. Besides Outlook is very popular with corporations it gets Linux one step closer
You missed the point of the original reply. How do you know what 300 people are in marketing unless you have a list? If you have the list it takes 2 seconds to add them to the marketing group.
Further you can do even better and have the director of marketing assign someone to maintain the list. Then anybody they put the list gets added to the marketing group automagically without you ever having to drag and drop anything ever again.
Here is a short list of places we have XP beat stone cold in terms of innovation:
/proc /proc filesystem it is easy to pull tremendous information about a running process. Its even quite possible to change the binary a process is running while it is running. NT has nothing like this
1) Network transparency -- X windows
This is something the Windows folks really really hard at with little luck. Java is all about being able to distribute apps. As most of us Unix guys know most Unix apps run fine on very limited dumb X-Servers which means they can be made to run fine on PDA's and Cell phones.
2) Custom File Systems -- FAT, XFS, HFS, etc...
Unix systems are designed to support a large number of file system seamlessly. So for example I can pop a Mac disk into my Linux laptop and read it no problem. Further on the high end we support file systems designed for specific tasks like XFS which speeds up disk operations on large files about 2x over most file systems.
3) Detailed system information --
With the invention of the
4) Language support --
While the commercial systems are catching up Linux is way ahead of most commercial systems in support languages especially languages which are very different than English (for example Hebrew and Arabic are written right to left). We've had this for decades and the result is that everything is fully implemented almost across the board.
5) Academic software
In almost every area of academia Linux systems are used and support compex innovations that simply don't exist anywhere in the PC world.
6) A powerful command line
read the title as Kroutware... something tells me the Germans wouldn't fund such a program...
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
www.prochange.org even....
put the what in the where?
I see that you are pretty close minded, you're automatically assuming that the new Admin tool which I said should be like MMC in terms of purpose, will be slow.
Close minded?!? Whatever.
I thought that that was what you were referring to. My bad. Now perhaps you would like to offer a suggestion as to how your interface will know which users go into your new group before they are put into a group. You can't really sort them in a way to make it easy to use any existing GUI user manager unless they already have something else in common in which case it's a non issue. Just put that commonality in the group. Done.
Your solution of having a list of users in a file called users.txt does not explain how the users got to that file.. and
Well, you will have a list unless you do everything by telepathy. Someone obviously has to compile the list before they ask you to add a list of people to a group.
I didn't say click 300 times, I said somehow have the ability to select the 300 users, and then say move them all to group marketing, this is the same amount of work needed to put your users in a users.txt file.
Again, it's (almost certainly) not the job of the sysadmin to determine who goes into the marketing group. Someone will supply you with the list you work off of.
Somehow?!? This implies magic. So if you're saying that at some point in time there will be some sort of thingy with a GUI which will make this process easier, then, OK, I can't really argue with a theoretical interface which might be developed at some unspecified point in the future.
It may be easy for you, but I want to spend more time making sure the system is up and running, than reading man pages on awk and sed.
If you don't have time to learn about the system you are trying to keep running, then you will never work in any department that I have any control over. Reading the man pages, or the windows equivalent is what allows you to keep the system running proactively. I'm not sure if this comment was a blatant troll, or if you honestly didn't put any thought into the consequences of your statements.
I wouldn't want to work in a department for a masochist like you.
:).
You're assuming in all your examples that things will only be done once, or will not require small flags or switches..
As for someone making a list of users that need to be in a group, true someone does need to make it, so have an import mechanism in the GUI, what if u want to delete a user ? remember switches all the time ? or would you rather make aliases in your shell , or a perl script to accept switches ? either way, you'll end up writing scripts to make things easier for you as they get more and more repetitive. You don't want every new guy who joins your company to learn all the switches etc. If you can memorize and not confuse man pages for all the commands in linux, then you are the exception and not the norm.
I still wouldn't work for you..
Now what exactly are we arguing about ? that GUIs or ways to make repetive tasks easier or faster is not necessary ? or that You don't think a GUI is necessry at all and people should just learn all the different utils that come with txtutils ?.
Let me rephrase what I want, I want an easy way to administer things, making the list of 300 users will be tedious no matter what, but repetive tasks, etc need to be simplified, and a gui is needed. The world is not run by elite geeks.
I wouldn't want to work in a department for a masochist like you.
:).
/. account when you were 10, or you would have had to have learned something by now.
Using my knowledge to do things the quickest and easiest way currently available is masochistic?!?
You're assuming in all your examples that things will only be done once, or will not require small flags or switches..
All my examples?!? There was one example, and it was yours.
As for someone making a list of users that need to be in a group, true someone does need to make it, so have an import mechanism in the GUI
You're assuming now that either the OS you're working with is Open Source which would allow you to do this, or that the vendor has decided to write this particular functionality into the GUI in just such a way as to allow this to work. That is a big assumption.
what if u want to delete a user ?
Then you delete the user. Duh!
How you would do this again depends on the particular system in question. Were it me doing it on my personal machine right now for one user, I would probably do it using linuxconf. However it would be completely idiotic to do it this way if I was deleting 300 users which was the example (that you gave, remember). It would be quicker to look up the correct switches for userdel to remove the home directory (or not if this is important) and figure out the proper command to type in to remove these users than it would to do it through any existing GUI user interface that I have ever seen or even heard of. This is, of course, assuming that there are a lot of users you are not deleting, and that there isn't some other common factor, like you want to delete the entire marketing group or something similar.
either way, you'll end up writing scripts to make things easier for you as they get more and more repetitive.
You seem to fail to understand that this is essentially why scripting languages were invented.
Any admin too stupid to learn how to use the tools available to save time and effort should not be working in that position because they spend an hour doing something that would take a competent admin (note: not even necessarily a good one) 5 minutes.
I still wouldn't work for you..
You got that god damn right. You are absolutely incompetent as an admin. You said that you would rather "run around making sure that the servers are up and running than reading man pages" If you would read the freaking manual, you wouldn't have to run around, and you would have less problems with servers crashing no matter what OS you're running because you would have a clue how the system worked. You must have gotten your
Now what exactly are we arguing about ? that GUIs or ways to make repetive tasks easier or faster is not necessary ? or that You don't think a GUI is necessry at all and people should just learn all the different utils that come with txtutils ?.
No, you said that a GUI is the best way to do things and gave an example where it was the worst possible way to do it. I ripped your example to shreds. You proceeded to wax poetic about some hypothetical magical GUI that has yet to be invented and how it would solve all of these problems. I said that I wouldn't hire a person like you to do system administration since you would prefer running all over rebooting servers to doing your freaking job, which includes learning how to administer the systems.
You then called me a masochist for wanting to do things the quick, easy, way rather than doing things the masochistic way: Let's see... Smith, Bob....there we go... clickety clack.....Smith, Benny..... there it is.....clickety clack..
Repeat 298 more times.
Oh wait... no, you wanted to use a magic telepathic interface that hasn't been invented.
I want an easy way to administer things, making the list of 300 users will be tedious no matter what, but repetive tasks, etc need to be simplified, and a gui is needed.
Shit in one hand and want in the other and see which fills faster.
Again making the list is almost certainly not your job, but once it's made there is an easy way to do it and a hard way right now. The GUI way is the hard way. You have yet to offer anything to counter this except for wishing for something.
What I demonstrated to you was a way to simplify a repetitive task. Your bitch about it was, as far as I can tell, that you would have to actually know something about the system you are supposed to be an administrator of.
A GUI is most certainly not always *needed*. In many situations it is useful, and in some it is so close to needed as to make no difference ( I would absolutely freaking *not* want to have to run a CLI version of Photoshop for example). You seem to fail to understand that there is a whole world of people who exist in a state between "elite geek" and complete freaking moron.