On Wed, May 15, 2002 at 11:46:41AM -0500, Robert Buel wrote: > That would be true if both NOS's required equal intuition to > master...but they don't...I can stumble around in MS and see
And there's the problem. This is a security list. We're here to learn not to just stumble around. > configurational windows--and usually find what I'm looking for...but on > a 'NIX box, you have to specifically enter in commands (read: know the > commands) read: learn enough to know what you're doing. > to configure each aspect of the NOS. Sure, there are windowed > GUI interfaces available, but then, it becomes Windows, doesn't it? Then you don't know enough about operating systems. Would say that adding a GUI to DOS made it Mac? After all, Mac popularized the GUI and predated what you are championing. But remember that the original poster didn't ask for an alternative to windows, but an alternative to iis *on* windows. He can keep the GUI and have Apache too. But if he wants to leave windows and still have a GUI, he can get Mac OS X, get a UNIX core with the stability and security that goes with it, Apache (after all, the question was about web servers), and a GUI that's an integral part of the system, but doesn't crash and take the whole system down with it. In other words, not wanting to wean off a GUI is no excuse to not move off Windows. You may be surprised how much software you use regularly originated on Mac. And don't even think of arguing that the "Windows" GUI is more intuitive. It's not intuitive to anyone who used Mac OS or KDE or any other GUI first. It's not intuitive if it's only intuitive to people who already know how to use it. > I agree that once you have mastered the NOS's, that the effort to > achieve that is, in fact, equal. It's just that the newbie would find it > easier to have a visual representation and configurational groups to > learn from--i.e. "figuring it out" is easier. Once again, recalling that this is a security list, do you really want a newbie configuring your web server? Seems like just last summer we had a memorable incident with insufficiently experienced web admins leaving sites vulnerable. Sure, they should have patched. But which dialog box in which GUI does a newbie click on to learn that he should patch? I haven't stumbled on to it yet. > > I think that better analogies might be: > >Driving with an automatic versus a stick shift. > >Using a manual camera versus an automatic camera > > Anyway, we'll just have to agree to disagree! Better to educate the newbies here on security-basics to not just stumble around than to merely agree to disagree. GUI or CLI, if you don't know what you're doing, DON'T DO IT!
