Re: [linux-audio-user] A couple of questions

Hi Lee, since I used SuSE and Mandrake, I dislike distro dependent configuration tools. Creating distro independent configuration tools makes more users benefit from the efforts, make them more versatile and user friendly. Setting up a DSL connection in Mandrake 10 with DrakConf was a pain, and as I used vi it was very simple. So I wonder if a distro independent GUI pppoe config tool was a bad idea? The same for configuring modems and other networking devices. I never understood where I find the config files on different distros, so a cool config tool which hides the underlaying system from the user is not only convenient, it also collects the knowledge of various distro architectures in its code. A further problem is that some Distros change the defaults of software packages. I remember the times I used SuSE. KDE often misbehaved. On Gentoo, I almost get a plain KDE and many things I had to struggle with on SuSE or Mandriva are gone. alsaconf is a great helper application because it includes support for various distros so many users have benefit from it instead only the users of one distribution. I'd like to add a further argument: if we leave system configuration to the packagers, we'll see two problems: * In commercial distros, if a package is not as optimally preconfigured as it could/should be, it is unlikely that it will be improved after the release date * Even in community driven projects we often see that packages that are not optimally preconfigured don't get fixed for a long time, maybe because the responsive packager has little time or even interest in doing it Please note that these points are not a personal complaint at all. I'm very happy with my Gentoo box. But when it comes to "Jeo Average" I think we can still improve the usability of current systems. Best regards ce