[NCLUG] Fedora 6 and the RaLink rt2500 wireless card

[jeff]

Chad Perrin wrote:
> What GUI tools there are in distributions like Debian, Gentoo, and
> Slackware tend to be designed to do exactly the same thing you'd do from
> the command line, and the distribution as a whole isn't designed to rely
> on those tools.  In other words, they're not distribution-specific
> tools, and they're wholly optional.  Not only can you avoid using them
> without any difficulty, but you can switch back and forth between using
> them and doing things directly with a text editor without ill effects.
> Further, these tools are not tied to the distribution: they're tools
> that are available in a number of distributions, so that you can use
> them elsewhere as well.  For the most part, like ifconfig, they're even
> available in Fedora, Mandr(ake|iva), and SuSE.

FWIW, I use a text editor 99% of the time to configure fedora. I guess I don't 
see how debian is standard and fedora isn't. You can go back & forth in either.

> While the configuration file locations do vary between distributions,
> they tend to be more accessible and discoverable for people unfamiliar
> with the system (aka "newbies").  For instance, network configuration
> for Debian is in /etc/network/interfaces, and for Gentoo is in
> /etc/conf.d/net.  Fedora, meanwhile, hides it in
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth*.  The first time I encountered
> this, I found myself bypassing a scripts directory in my search for
> network configuration files because I was looking for configuration
> files.  When I did look in network-scripts, I discovered that there was
> no single file, but instead a collection of separate files that all
> needed to be edited individually.  God forbid I should need to make a
> bunch of changes all at once -- especially with a handful of files that
> were each a few lines long, but someone decided that twenty lines in a
> config file was too many.

Ya, one per interface or one huge file. It's somewhat arbitrary which is 
best... Again, fwiw, my first time on gentoo I hunted around for a bit until I 
rtfm. I don't see how this is a fedora issue per se it's more like "i've used 
distro X for years and I know how it's set up, when I use distro Y I need to 
read a bit to learn it..."

> Having docs that "are in a standard place (standard for fedora" is the
> same as having docs that are in a nonstandard place, unless you're so
> wedded to your distribution that you'll never have to worry about the
> fact that nobody else does the same thing.

Where do I look? `man`, then /usr/share/doc.  It may be new to you, but it's in 
Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, and OpenBSD (or /usr/local/share doc). This /is/ the 
standard location for non-manpage documentation on Unix-like systems--it is NOT 
specific to Fedora.

> It's not just the fact that the specific format of configuration files
> is distasteful and that docs are "in a standard place" for the
> distribution but not where I expected them to be.  It's that
> discoverability of configuration format and documentation standards for
> the distribution sucks, that things are wildly different from the way
> other distributions do things for no apparent reason other than sheer
> market-differentiation perversity,

Which came first RedHat or Gentoo? RedHat or Debian? So how can you say they 
are trying to "sheerly" differentiate themselves from these other distros when 
they set up their system /first/.

Anyhoo...

-Jeff