RouseWorld | Main -- re: Working Late

re: Working Late

Looking back on the "Working late" post, it seems like I'm a big pro-GUI dude, and that really isn't true. So let's bash Sun again and talk about GUIs that aren't better than the command line (and a few that are).

And that means going back to directory services.

Sun has an LDAP based directory service package. The package has a fancy GUI that, one would think, allow you to easily setup a directory server and populate it with all the stuff you want to store in the server. OpenLDAP offers a plain-jane directory server with no fancy GUI, just command-line tools.

Guess which one is better?

I spent a lot of time monkeying around with the GUI, but I genuinely prefer to use OpenLDAP's command line tools. It is easier to setup directory services that way than fiddling with Sun's GUI. Note that I was doing this maybe a year ago, so Sun, perhaps, has improved the GUI tools since then.

So GUI doesn't always mean easy to use. A reasonable command-line tool can actually make an administrator's job easier -- even without the obvious advantage that you can automate a command line easier than a GUI (sometimes).

Note that for configuring serial ports, I will use Sun's GUI admintool. It gives you control and simplicity both. Another good GUI tool is AIX's SMIT. This GUI administrative tool will show you the command-line equivilant of every GUI command you issue, so you can learn the command-line from the GUI.

Note to any Sun fans -- I still use three Suns of my very own at home. But I don't use any of the fancy new desktop GUIs, preferring the simplicity of OpenLook.