Changing Host name

[Ronno]

This is not a problem but a compaint that I hope a fedora developer reads about.

After installing Fedora Core 1 and playing around with it I found out that I needed to change the computer's name in order to set it up as a host on my windows network. I used the Network tool under System Settings and then upon reboot I had some serious boot up problems (for this newbie anyway).

I was able to fix this by adding an entry in the /etc/hosts file and now everything works great.

My compalint is this: Why didn't the Network tool take care of adding an entry in /etc/hosts for me? If there is a technical reason then at least I could have been given a clue that I needed to do this or else bad things would happen. I had this problem back with Redhat Linux 8.0 and was a bit surprised to encounter it again.

[fjleal]

Yes, I've run into that same problem once with Red Hat 9. Too bad it hasn't been fixed, for it is no major problem for experienced users, but for a newbie...

[ieatlint]

Perhaps you should see the command line programs provided by redhat:
domainname
hostname
WARNING: Do not execute these programs unless you know what you're doing -- see their man files first. Executing them without arguments or with "--help" will either unset their values or change them to "--help".

Also, check the file
/etc/sysconfig/network

[fjleal]

It's safe to execute those programs, provided that you're not under the root account... As you shouldn't be. ;)

[Ronno]

But why provide a GUI tool to change the hostname that does not do it correctly? It seems to me that the tool should at least warn you (better yet do it for you) that another manual configuration needs to be made and then point you in the right direction.

[foolish]

Remember, if you have a suggestion for a certain redhat application, bugzilla.redhat.com is the place to post suggestions. But please think things through first, maybe even try a few things and try to come up with a way to do this yourself before you post the feature request.

[Ronno]

I din't know about bugzilla.redhat.com. I will definitley post this complaint/suggestion there. Thanks for the tip.

Just to be clear though. I did think my problem through and was able to solve it. I was merely pointing out that the GUI tool could have done a better job in making all the necessary changes. It is possible that this is not desired by most users in which case I just don't understand why.