Learn from suse install to improve my Ubuntu install?

[Alan Mckinnon]

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 09:42 -0400, ubuntu at rio.vg wrote:

> I'm all for using the command-line, but given that different distro's
> arrange /etc differently, using the gui just to get it up and running is
> much easier, but in Ubuntu, just finding the correct gui could be
> problematic.  One of yast's greatest assets, in addition to being only
> one command to remember, is the curses version of it lets you have the
> ease of the gui configurer, but on the console.

The beauty of SuSE is that it gives you YaST
The pita   of SuSE is that it gives you ... YaST

I'm all for easy config tools if the user, especially newbies, wants
them. I don't, and I seriously resent YaST's tendency to bulldoze over
my previous manual mods if I forgot to run Suse-config. I much prefer
the RHEL method with that Setup tool - it locks all the config files,
reads them and displays the current settings in the tool. Click OK and
it writes them back = no conflict with whatever I've done manually in
the meantime. And it works nicely on the console too

> I don't buy the "We don't install anything listening by default, so you
> don't need a host firewall".  It's fine for the single user at the end
> of a cable modem, but even installing something as simple as nfs require
> rpc portmap, which is then a listening service.

We all had a long thread a while back on this, and I've thought about it
some since them. The "nothing listening" argument is fine as far as it
goes, but as you say what about when the clueless user installs
something that does listen? It would be much better to install a
firewall with the setup, disabled by default, and guide the user through
the process of enabling it automagically after the first listening
service is installed. Then at least the user is less likely to have his
machine lying wide open because he forgot/didn't know how to enable the
firewall

alan