registry for Linux/GNU

[Samsara]

Wouldn't it be great it there was a tool, like regedt.exe for Windows, that would allow one to change parameter settings in a large variety of files, rather than having to change them individually with text editors? Is there such a utility? Does MS have a patent on the concept?

Cheers,

Philipp

[Fabianx]

Wouldn't it be great it there was a tool, like regedt.exe for Windows, that would allow one to change parameter settings in a large variety of files, rather than having to change them individually with text editors? Is there such a utility? Does MS have a patent on the concept?

Cheers,

Philipp

If you can tell me one advatage of having a binary registry in favor of text-files then I'll seriously consider rethinking this issue.

Else I really don't understand why you would want that ?

How is it easier for someone to use regedit then some text-editor ?!

And yes, all files are in /etc so for what do you need a regedit ?!

cu

Fabian

[VeeDubb]

Samsara,

Being EXTREMELY well versed in all things windows (except netowrking) I was also a bit surpirsed at the way "registry" settings are handled in linux. The way each program has it's own text files that are editable and usualy well commented. I found the switch to be quite daunting, because everything is windows is hands off, and keep out.

But believe me, even though I am still VERY green when it comes to linux, I have found that I LOVE having those text files instead of the binary registry. It allows you so much more controll. Plus, when a program is well commented as most of them are, it is realy a LOT easier. Having tht kind of commenting ina single global settings file like the windows registry would be a nightmare because eash program would need to make relatively huge changes to the file. Where in windows, the variables and values are set with no real explanation as to what most of it does.

Also, if you make the wrong change and windows won't boot, you are SOL. In linux, you can almost always boot into a prompt and cd to the directory the messed up file is in and use VI or whatever editer you want to fix it.

[garyng]

Windows used this approach in 3.1(windows.ini, system.ini etc.) but they somehow thought that a registry is better(mostly because of those OCX stuff where they can't find a good place to store because of the mixture of both text and binary content).

It is an administrator nightmare.

[Menion]

perhaps instead of haveing a huge number of files in /bin dirs in order to allow software to find its dependencies a registry type system could be used to check if the program is installed and if so where... Honestly with the way things are if anything needs to get more user friendly for newbies it seems to be the directory structure.

[arkaine23]

If you know a language like perl, you can affect changes to multiple text files fairly easily. it's amazing what you can do with one-liner perl commands.

[GdB]

Windows used this approach in 3.1(windows.ini, system.ini etc.) but they somehow thought that a registry is better(mostly because of those OCX stuff where they can't find a good place to store because of the mixture of both text and binary content).

It is an administrator nightmare.

As far as I remember the problem was that if there was an error in the those ini files, Windows could not read behind this error. The other problem was that the whole file had to be scanned to read the entries at the end, so it was slow.

The registry has an index structure, so it is faster, and can happily ignore errors as long as the erronuous key is not needed. I also assume that changes can be made faster, due to this index structure. And the binary content could really be an argument too.

BTW, I can support the original idea of this thread a little: it is sometime difficult to find out where you must change your settings. Of course, one could say RTHFM, but one could also help with a simple GUI-tool that leads you to the right file in an explore like fashion.

my 0.05

[Dan_Netwalker]

Windows registry is a lot less flexible than the linux way to make the config, but let's read between lines with the suggestion:

How about a gui "general config file editor" with a regedit window layout, that puts in an organized tree all the common aplications on the knoppix/linux system in the left pannel, and clicking on it shows the file on the right pannel. Then you will be able to switch from "view only mode" the config file to "edit mode" with a single click on a button, change whatever and save.

All the config in a single place, maybe with an adittional pannel with the "man <file>" on it to check the freakin' manual in case you are not completely sure. I don't think is a bad idea, and it shouldn´t need much horsepower to make it on piton/tcl-tk or wathever and make it run on any machine.

What do you think, people?

[j.drake]

Sounds good, but aren't you describing the KDE configuration editor?

[Stephen]

Windows registry is a lot less flexible than the linux way to make the config, but let's read between lines with the suggestion:

How about a gui "general config file editor" with a regedit window layout, that puts in an organized tree all the common aplications on the knoppix/linux system in the left pannel, and clicking on it shows the file on the right pannel. Then you will be able to switch from "view only mode" the config file to "edit mode" with a single click on a button, change whatever and save.

All the config in a single place, maybe with an adittional pannel with the "man <file>" on it to check the freakin' manual in case you are not completely sure. I don't think is a bad idea, and it shouldn´t need much horsepower to make it on piton/tcl-tk or wathever and make it run on any machine.

What do you think, people?

Webmin?