Re: Proposed: gmodconfig

[Cyril Bortolato <borto users sourceforge net>]

Jeff Waugh wrote:
> This is very Linux-specific, and exposes inner mechanics of the system that
> really ought to "just work". I'm not sure any of this stuff should really be
> exposed to users, particularly in this fashion.

The gmodconfig *app* in its current form indeed expects users to first
know what a module is, and then how it's named in order to configure it.
While better than having to edit /etc/modules.conf manually, this
approach requires too much user hand-holding and that was a mistake.

I changed course since and released the core of gmodconfig as a Bonobo
control. This makes gmodconfig embeddable in applications that need to
tweak modules parameters (or install new modules). See this earlier
discussion for more details:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-October/msg00533.html

So IMHO the gmodconfig Bonobo control has its place in the GNOME
Desktop release, as an OS-specific backend to other apps or to HAL.
Right now it only supports Linux modules. I suppose it could be made to
support FreeBSD modules while retaining the same interface in the Bonobo
control (but I'm not familiar with FreeBSD). Joe, any comments?

> We should hope that our
> distributors get all of their kernel-level stuff right, so we don't have to
> solve these problems.

Ideally things should just work :-) Certain modules however still have
settings that only users can set (for webcams: lighting conditions of a
room, compression on/off, or parameters affecting image quality & fps).
Also installing new modules ought to be easier than it is today and
gmodconfig also addresses this (on Linux) thanks to DKMS.

Cyril