Re: gnome-network

[Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr>]

On Sat, 2002-12-07 at 02:13, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Rodrigo Moya">
> 
> > So, what do people think? any good ideas on small network tools that would
> > be nice to have in gnome-network?
> 
> Would you target gnome-network for inclusion in the Desktop release? If so,
> its contents would have to be fairly widely appealing. Lots of good stuff
> that I think is appropriate.
> 
>   - PPP setup & dialer: Rodney mentioned this, and I think it's a really
>     good candidate. Trouble is, it's kinda distro-specific nowadays, so it
>     would need to have an architecture similarish to GST.

You could probably just stick to using a pppd/chat setup here that is
known to work with every distro.

>   - ssh/telnet client: I'd love to have a little ssh/telnet bookmarks clicky
>     clicky thing. :-) If they appeared on a menu, that would be even better.
>     (I have a set of .desktop files that I use in a panel menu, which is
>     really useful, but I have to create these myself.) If it had ssh-agent
>     integration (perhaps pop up a dialogue for passphrase when gnome-session
>     starts under ssh-agent) and key generation/copying, that'd be waaay
>     sweet.

Perhaps running the ssh-add command when starting with ssh-agent should
be filed as a bug. That's something that doesn't really require
integration into gnome-network. The stuff already exists, it just seems
that the login scripts aren't complete enough. A GNOME2-based UI might
be more pleasing to the eye though. Also, what about the password
docklet thing in Red Hat 8.0? It does some weird neat stuff, IIRC.

>   - gnome-vfs modules for various network filesystems, such as NFS, SMB
>     (already in extras, I know), Bastien's server browser thingy, gnutella,
>     etc.

The "network:" URI that hadess wrote is also already in. It could
probably use some cleanups though. I'm not sure gnutella belongs in
vfs. The problem with gnutella is for it to be really useful, you
need a highly customized UI, and all the current ones suck. It's also
confusing as to how it would display as a filesystem. I mean, would you
want 30 billion files in your folder view in nautilus? It would take
just absolutely forever to get a full file list. You also need to be
connected to like 20 servers to have it be of any real use. It's just
something that really doesn't belong in that class of things. :)

>   - Perhaps pull the network-specific gnome-applets into it (sharing code
>     where appropriate, eg. modem-lights, etc)?
> 

Yeah, pulling the network applets in would be a good idea. I'd like to
also take the opportunity to suggest getting rid of modem lights and
replacing it with a sane ppp config setup that uses a docklet for
status.

-- dobey