On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 17:43, Michael K. Johnson wrote:
On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 04:26:27PM -0400, Ben Steeves wrote:
Mind you, SMIT's implementation wasn't perfect. Since the commands were built programmatically (SMIT is essentially a front end that runs the appropriate commands (or scripts)), they were sometimes less than optimal or needlessly pedantic (putting in parameters for flags that would be assumed as defaults, that sort of thing). Still, it was very reassuring (for a seasoned sysadmin because you knew exactly what was going on, and for a newbie because you could learn).
I think that the fact that SMIT had to do this was an indication that the whole configuration process was wrongheaded from the start in AIX.
I don't disagree with you :-) Nonetheless, the ability to "pull back the curtain" is one of the things that sets Linux apart from Those Other Operating Systems. I would never advocate mimicing anything about how SMIT or AIX configuration in general work, but for configuration, as any true Linux geek will tell you, nothing beats the command line. GUI tools are really convenient, but I know I always feel better when doing my thing I'm backstage :-)
(Yes, I was an AIX admin at one time, I'm not just spouting off.)
I feel your pain :-) Thankfully Linux saved us both :)