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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: feature idea - feedback wanted
From:       "Patrick D. Dowler" <dowler () pt1B1106 ! FSH ! UVic ! CA>
Date:       1999-02-14 5:55:32
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On Sat, 13 Feb 1999, Russ Steffen wrote:
>I've noticed that there are a few loose in KDE that could be tied
>neatly together. What I'm refering to are several KDE programs
>that make assumptions about how you are connected to the internet
>(dedicated vs. dialup, proxies, etc.).

Not wanting to slag your idea - it would be useful for a great many
users - but network stuff is an OS service and not a desktop
or windowing system service. The ability to configure an OS service
is suitable GUI thing to have, however. This distinction is an
important one, IMO. 

There has been recently a plethora of sys admin tools hacks* added 
to KDE that I think need to be thought out more clearly. They seem 
like good ideas to people with their linux of FreeBSD box at home, or 
even with their own box on an academic or work network, where the user
is also the admin, but the distinction between user space and root/system
space is what makes unices work. If you blend these too much, you
end up in an M$ kind of nightmare :-)

* the reason that I call these "hacks" is that if you install KDE in a 
standard unix network enviromment - for use by users -  you end 
up disabling or removing a fair number of things. I just don't think 
such things should be appearing in the menus of normal users.

However, until I come up with the killer idea for how to handle sys
admin tasks within the GUI of KDE, I haven't got anything to offer
as an alternative :-(  There have been a few discussions about this,
but nothing has really come out of it. 

I looked at gnome-linuxconf last time I installed redhat and it is a very
large, complex, and mostly ill-functioning piece of work. Most of the 
time you can't tell what's happening (even if you know what should be
happening) and it  sometimes fails to do the right thing and doesn't tell 
you, which is worse than not being able to do it, IMO...

hmm, I guess it was a bit of a slag. Sorry.
--

Patrick Dowler
Victoria, BC

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