users and groups - thanks

[Derek Broughton]

Brian Astill wrote:

> On Sunday 28 December 2008 12:50:13 Thomas Sprinkmeier wrote:
>> On Sun, 2008-12-28 at 09:28 +1030, Brian Astill wrote:
>> > Thanks for the helpful comments and advice.
>> > I guess my one criticism of Ubuntu is that it tends to hide
>> > commands like usermod and leave people like me suspicious
>> > when the need arises to use them.
>>
>> Can you think of a way to un-'hide' it, preferably without
>> sending command-line shy first-timers running behind the sofa
>> and cowering in fear?
> 
> I cannot understand why some people are so defensive on this
> issue.  

What's defensive about the question?  All the command line tools are there - 
but I can't see a simple way to make them move visible.

> The fact is that the sysadmin  GUI tools are incomplete
> and thus misleading.  In the particular case the GUI tool would
> not allow me to allocate more than one group to a user I wished
> to create.

Except that it does....

> Had I not _known_ that this was possible I would have
> made no further enquiry - usermod and other useful variants had
> been effectively hidden from me.

How are they hidden?  They're exactly as accessible as any other command 
line tool.

> THE answer to many such issues might be to install webmin by
> default (thanks to the person who suggested webmin).

Now THAT is going to get defensive responses.  Webmin is heartily disliked 
by many.  Personally, I think there's nothing wrong with webmin, itself, but 
many of the webmin modules are pathetic.