On Mon, June 21, 2004 12:07 pm, joe said: > For the first one, what do you propose as an answer? Obviously going to a > bunch of separate text files you have to configure gets away from that > single point of failure of a single registry but adds all sorts of > management issues and having to chase all over to gather info about what > is on your machine. What is the right answer to this one?
Having all the configs as text files in /etc works fine for Unix-like systems. You can use any editor to look at the config - no need for some proprietary editor (regedit). Automating config changes is as easy as writing a simple shell script. Each config is named after its application, so it's easy to know which is which, and if you need to restore an application, just install the app then copy your backup config file into place. As a matter of fact, an entire system can be restored by re-installing the apps and only restoring /etc (configs) and /home (user data) from backup. Try that on Windows. Have you ever had a successful Windows restore without a full system backup or without re-configuring everything from scratch? It is extremely difficult. Why? Because of the registry... The "config file mess" is an excuse made up by MS to sell the registry concept. The registry does not make it easier to manage application configuration. Instead, it makes it considerably more complex. The real reason for the registry is to make it difficult to copy an application from one machine to another. In other words, it's a copy proctection scheme. Remember in the days of Win 3.1, you could do that? It all broke in Win95 with the registry. -Eric _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html