OSNews

Configuration of Linux is, at least on a 'newbie' distro like Mandrake is though gui tools like 'Mandrake Control Center' as well. Other more powerful gui tools like Linuxconf or Webmin can also be used.

Unfortunately, people still have to get their hands dirty with config files on occasion. The NVidia drivers is one example. This is unnacceptable, but very hard to avoid unless NVidia are prepared to open source their drivers, provide detailed specs, or can be persuaded to write a better installer.

I do not think that the Linux gui system administration tools are as well integrated into the OS as the configuration control panels in Windows. There is much room for improvement here.

However, editing a text config file is a much less dangerous and difficult task compared to making changes in the registry. Linux is quite modular and robust, it's harder to break and the low level configuration is better commented and documented compared to Windows.

As the configuration files are parsed text, the parsers are expected to deal with syntax errors before passing them to the app. An error will normally leave you with a log file error report entry rather than an broken system. With Windows, the registry is expected to be sound, and an error is much more critical, and less likely to be logged anywhere.

This is because for a long time, the *only* way to really configure a Linux system was through it's config files, so the apps that rely on them had to deal with errors in a more forgiving way.

"Text files may have advantages but my point was that command line editors are more cryptic than regedit."

You don't have to use command line tools to edit config files, you could even use OpenOffice if you liked. They are just text files.

"Linux doesn't have a unified configuration because each distro is slightly different - RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Debian all use different styles and have files in slightly different places - at least once you've learnt to configure Windows it's the same on each system. "

I don't find these slight differences to be a problem, but can see how a newbie could. There is a deeper problem of the division between the low level tools in Linux and the high level gui and desktop.

For example, in the KDE control center I can *see* the configuration of my network and SCSI cards, but not change them without opening a different gui app.
I can however, configure file sharing, samba, proxy, power saving, and even configure the kernel from the same control center.
This is due in part to the user/system administrator seperation philosophy of *nix based OSs, and the desire of KDE to keep their desktop OS agnostic, but the division is less and less clear.