[sf-lug] /smxi

[Rick Moen]

[I'll post this separately to svlug at lists.svlug.org.]

Quoting maestro (maestro415 at gmail.com):

> We attended the last SV-LUG General Meeting and I had asked Rick (Moen) if
> he used or knew of smxi. He replied no and had never heard of it with
> interest in what it is/does.
> 
> Here you go...
> 
> Disclaimer:
> I include the link to an entire page of helpful things people may want to
> do after an install which has the smxi.
> If you'd ONLY like to check out the smxi simply scroll down the page after
> pointing your browser to it and have fun...
> 
> 
> <
> https://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/crunchbang-11-waldorf-debian-wheezy-os/
> >

smxi is an interesting interactive script that mediates between the
administrative user and the regular administrative tools of any of
numerous Debian-family distributions (Aptosid formerly Sidux, Mepis,
Ubuntu, Crunchbang, etc.) -- to perform tasks like managing packages,
managing kernels, managing proprietary video drivers, etc.).  It is
maintained independently from the various distros it aims to support,
i.e., it is third-party software that is not part of any distro package
and is not distro-maintained software.

So:  On the one hand, we have both Maestro and quite a number of other
people expressing satisfaction with smxi as a primary administrative
tool.   http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=51089

On the other manual extremity, we have -- I think, and I'll presume to
speak for them -- many people with broad experience administering and
running Linux distros, who have an (admittedly) knee-jerk reaction:

o  Key adminstrative tools that are neither maintained by me nor 
   provided as distro-maintained software?  No thanks.
o  This doesn't appear to do anything I cannot do as well or better
   using the primary admin tools of my distro itself, to which smxi
   is an abstraction layer that front-ends them.
o  And I will be much better able to fully administer both my own
   and other systems (that probably won't offer smxi) if I learn
   to use those primary tool properly.
o  Thus, this seems like a solution in search of a problem.

As this is a knee-jerk reaction -- I've heard of smxi before, I now 
remember, but haven't used it -- you might consider the above prejudice,
and that is a defensible view.  I would reply that the idea of key 
administrative tools as third-party add-ons to a distro is a generally
bad idea with some bad history, making this to a degree postjudice
rather than prejudice.

But whatever works for you is of course good.  Just bear in mind the
possiblity that it's a tactical error.

-- 
Cheers,                 Some people, when confronted with a problem, think,
Rick Moen               "I know, I'll use Dvorak!"  Now they have k,s rosnpdm;e
rick at linuxmafia.com                                   -- Colter Reed
McQ! (4x80)