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Is It Still Difficult to Configure a Linux Distribution?

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Is It Still Difficult to Configure a Linux Distribution? TECH&TRENDS OPEN SOURCE Is it Still Difficult to Configure a Linux Distribution? In this article, we do a visual inspection of different configuration tools in four Linux distributions, from the point of view of a first-time user — Hiren Mehta here was a time when configuring a Linux In the recent years, popular Linux distributions have distribution used to be considered a daunting undertaken attempts to provide a `Control Panel’ of sorts. task. You were expected to use unintuitive Given that Linux is inherently modular, this may not act as Ttext editors at the command line to specify your single point of contact for tweaking/tuning all of the simple things like the resolution of your monitor, possible system parameters/administrative policies, but since without typically knowing which are the ones that they are GUI-based in the first place, this makes life a lot less the monitor actually supports, thus risking frying up troublesome for the average Linux user, assuming that they your monitor in case of out-of-range values as the old know the implications of what changes they are making. It is monitors available at that time did not automatically worth noting that these are in addition to the control centres switch to fail-safe standby. provided by desktop environments such as Gnome and KDE. 1. Slackware-based distro: Porteus Porteus provides a tool called as the `Porteus Settings Centre’ which groups different configuration dialogs into their respective domains. It needs much improvement though. Certain configuration dialogs need to be assigned to more appropriate categories, some applets are irrelevant in a settings centre itself, and so on. The Porteus Settings Centre groups system configuration tasks into just half-a-dozen categories, namely, the home screen (general settings), system settings, security settings, boot settings, change file settings and system information. The `Porteus Settings Centre’ in Porteus 2.0, standard edition, 64-bit 54 PCQUEST J une 2 0 1 3 pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] 2. Ubuntu-based distro: Pinguy OS Pinguy, like Porteus, is a heavily customized fork of its base distribution. However, here the focus is more on a wide range of tweaks and less on portability. Pinguy OS relies on tweaking tools such as the `Ubuntu Tweak’ tool shown below in order to make subtle but useful changes in the preferences of the user as stored by the system. Categories available are: Applications, Startup, Desktop, Personal and System. Compared to the Porteus Settings Centre, it is much easier to find the correct place to make changes because the grouping of individual screens has been done in a more appropriate manner. Ubuntu Tweak in Pinguy OS 11.04 (64-bit) 3. Ubuntu-based distro: Peppermint OS Peppermint OS is focused on connecting to cloud- based tools and services. Various menu entries connect directly to online/web applications, such as web-based mail, web-based calendar, web- based photo editor, etc. However, that doesn’t make it stripped down to the barebones as far as offline usable functionality is concerned. Along with a handful of useful applications, as shown below, it does offer a plethora of options for the user to configure under the `Preferences’ section of the LXDE main menu, including but not limited to language settings, network connections, monitor, keyboard/mouse, etc. `Preferences’ menu in Peppermint OS Three, 64-bit 4. OpenSUSE Although it is based on RPM (Redhat Package Management), OpenSUSE is a highly popular distribution by itself. YaST remains the single biggest central point of configuring different settings, and as shown by the screenshot below, one screen at a resolution of 1366x768 is less to fit in all of the different applets available. However, inspite of partitioning different settings into Software, Hardware, System, Network Devices, Network Services, etc., for a system administrator who is using Linux for the first time, it can be too confusing. For example, such a person may have no clue as to which are the important system logs to look for in case something goes wrong. It is natural that the `System’ category would be looked into as the first logical place, but the user would have no idea that here `System Log’ has been put YaST in openSUSE 12.3, (full DVD install, XFCE environment), 64-bit in the `Miscellaneous’ category, at the end of the list (which cannot be seen in the screenshot). Thankfully, there is a search box at the top-right that filters the list of displayed applets as you type. Do you want to configure something in your Linux distribution but do not know how to go about it? Ask us at [email protected] pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] J une 2 0 1 3 PCQUEST 55.
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