Norton Go Home! We don't want you!

[rodgers at clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu]

In <455 at bria> mike at bria writes:

>In an article, ra.MsState.Edu!it1 (Tim Tsai) writes:
>|In article <433 at bria>:
>||In an article, ms.uky.edu!kherron (Kenneth Herron) writes:
>||In my "not-quite-so-humble" opinion, armchair sysadmins deserve DOS.
>||You are talking about two things here: system administration and end-use.
>||In the DOS world, "end-user" and "administrator" are one in the same.
>||Not so in the UNIX world.
>|
>|  It is very often the case in the 386/Unix world..  With prices of
>|  workstations dropping, more end users will have their own Unix box on
>|  their desk.

>And most of these workstations with be networked, and have a central
>authority.

Good points, both of you.  There is a need to address the issue of
stand-alone UNIX cpus.  Even in the case of networked systems, the tools
for efficient administration are lacking.

>... My point was that too many UNIX
>"professionals" are not learning the _innards_ of the operating system.
>They are using scripts and such (that were designed to make routine jobs
>a bit easier) as a _crutch_.  And yes, a sysadmin that relies on 'vi' and
>has no idea how to use 'ed' is NOT worth a dime.  Know why?  Sometime, he's
>gonna run into a situation where his /usr filesystem got hosed, or the
>/etc/termcap got chunked.  If something like that stops a sysadmin, then
>yep, he's worthless as a plug nickel.

You could argue that a good sysadmin also plans ahead, and stores a few
essential utilities (including the editor he is most comfortable with,
perhaps vi) on an archive medium to be pulled in under mini-UNIX in
the event of a major crisis such as the one you describe, or even stores
multiple copies of key programs in small administrative directories on
different partitions.  We do the former.  Being a good sysadmin involves
much more than conversancy with any given tool or tools.  An intimate
knowledge of internals without goof general strategic reasoning skills
is not of much use..

>It depends.  Since Norton attaches itself, virus-like, to my kernel, and
>induces the kernel to lie to me about the true state of affairs on the
>system, I would count this as a hinderance.

I can't speak to Norton, but I share your distrust of a firm known for its
involvment in the DOS world trying to use this reputation to barge into
the UNIX community.  However, there is a crying need for good administrative
tools, and this is being addressed by others.  Witness the ERSA system
from Canada, or the System Manager's Toolkit from the University of
California (otl at violet.berkeley.edu for information).  Both attempt to
address administrative needs starting from the UNIX end of things...

Cheerio, Rick Rodgers
R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.         (415)476-2957 (work) 664-0560 (home)
UCSF Laurel Heights Campus     UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cca.ucsf.edu!rodgers
3333 California St., Suite 102 Internet: rodgers at maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu
San Francisco CA 94118 USA     BITNET: rodgers at ucsfcca