Here is the small history of Linuxconf.

1-It was decided to create a "better" front-end to configure
  X. The program was called xconf.
  You can see here and there some function called xconf_something.
  There is still a directory xconf containing mostly stubs.

2-The Xfree team has moved to 3.x and provide a tool. This
  tool does not look nice, but still allows easy (fairly) configuration
  of X. Anyway, quite many people are working to address this topic.

3-the xconf project was dropped, Linuxconf was born. It was understood
  that in order to properly configured X or anything, there are quite
  a few other things which must be checked before.

4-The starting idea of Linuxconf: askrunlevel, a utility to
  intercept the boot sequence et change it on the fly.

5-It was decided to transform the dialog program (used by
  Slackware and many other configuration utilities) into a library.
  It was also decided to use C++ and stay away from "easy" script.

6-A lot of work was added to the dialog library to make it self
  centering, easing the coding of dialogs. It was still in C even
  if the rest of the project was C++.

then time goes by and more and more features has been added...

7-The idea of "netconf --update" came by. This was a new starting
  point for Linuxconf.

8-More and more dialogs were done. The old dialog library could
  not provide the level of functionality. It has been almost
  completely rewritten in C++, allowing mixed type, multi field
  dialogs.

It is still possible to revamp dialog/main.c to create a new dialog
program offering the new capabilities of the library. This would
make the Slackware installation much more appealing.

9-It was decided that the package was good enough to be released.
  A lot of work was added to the help files.

There we are!!!!