>>SuSE is very vigilant about being on top of security issues and, like RH, often has a patch on their website before many
> folks realize there was a problem or an exploit. The primary thing that attached me to SuSE, 3 years ago, was it's
> system administration tool, called YaST (Yet another System Tool). Three years ago it was avant garde, but RH and
> Mandrake, and others, have caught up and I am sure their 'YaST' tools (RH: linuxconf) are equally powerful.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>linuxconf - perhaps great promise, but right now, (excuse the vernacular), it SUCKS!!!
>You cannot trust it. (I describe any such gui or menu system config and management tool as "Idiot UNIX" - even YaST!
>Why? Because you don't know exactly what the tool is doing to which file. linuxconf currently munges stuff.
>When we report it to the maintainers, we get ignored. That is what's sad. I tend to avoid it.
>However, there is no way that linux will get to the unwashed masses unless linuxconf becomes more mature.
>
>I'm an old UNIX system guy. While it's been awhile since I could edit binaries by cat'ing to them, I still do things
>by hand because I can do them quicker and be sure of the results. More power to u if u found a tool u like!
>
>The big difference in the linux world is support. Not the kind you try to pay for. That sucks from anybody right now.
>It's the list serves (e.g. redhat-list@redhat.com) where the gurus lurk and everybody answers. Even newbies get
>help within a couple of hours for anything and don't get flamed! That's what's different in the new computing model:
>the open sources community supports itself!!! Try that with M$ stuff! Now, some distros have better or more helpful
>support lists. That is what I look for in comparing distros. That's why RH is one of the best - it's the users listserve!

I agree with your views on help via the List Servers in Linux, but not necessarily newgroups. Folks have to log onto list servers with real names, just as we do here at UT, so folks tend to be polite. Newsgroups seem to attract the psychopaths of our society. They are usually drenched in Testosterone and every discussion usually ends in an argument with one or both sides calling the other side a Facist or Communist. They are both usually right.

The SuSE email group, for example, is superb! Folks who don't use SuSE visit that list just because members there are so knowledgeable and polite.

I don't know that much about LinuxConf, but I do know about YaST. I don't use the new, graphical version of YaST, but it is supposed to work the same way as the script version. All YaST does is write your responses to the various YaST menu options into a text file, /etc/rc.config, and then fires the script /sbin/SuSECOnfig, which reads rc.config, and a couple of other perl scripts, and does what the menu settings require. It is easy to follow and modify, if one has to. LinuxConf may be brain-dead but YaST is a very powerful system admin tool.