Re: [Setup-tool-hackers] Gnome System Tools + PGI + Progenyhackers + more developers from Debian = working Debian Desktop

[Jeff Licquia <licquia progeny com>]

On Tue, 2002-11-05 at 16:07, Carlos Garnacho wrote:
> About a week ago I had a little conversation with Colin Walters (sorry
> for not posting this issue to the list...) about the future of GST in
> the debian desktop, it's one of the config tools candidates, but there
> are still many things to do before worrying about this. Obviously, I
> offered all the help we could provide to make GST a better candidate.

I don't really know anything about the GNOME Setup Tools, so please
enlighten me if I have missed anything.

In Debian, a large amount of system configuration is done using
debconf.  Debconf was created to solve many problems Debian has had in
the past with configuration, and in my opinion, it does the job fairly
well.

The configlets have the advantage that they use debconf to do their
work.  It is possible to switch back and forth between debconf and the
configlets to configure the system, and neither gets out of sync with
the other.  In my opinion, any credible "standard" Debian configuration
system must work the same way, as debconf is well on its way to be the
real standard for Debian.

> > Now I see 2 good and overlaping (see for example Date and Time 
> > Configuration screenshots - 
> > http://hackers.progeny.com/configlets/screenshots/screen04.png and 
> > http://www.gnome.org/projects/gst/screenshots/time.jpg) projects - Gnome 
> > System Tools and Debian Configlets from Progeny. Both projects still are 
> > in beta stage and simple users can't really work with them. If Progeny 
> > hackers develop Gnome System Tools instead Progeny Configlets then users 
> > will get working tools for Linux system configuration. Now every Linux 
> > distribution has its own config tools and I think this is not good - 
> > Debian could be a good example to abandon its own config tools and start 
> >   developing and using unified ones.
> 
> It could be great!! Sometimes I'd wish more collaboration...

I am not opposed in principle to the idea that GST and the configlets
could merge, as long as GST is flexible enough to be able to use debconf
on the back end.  IMHO, GST should also be modular and decentralized as
much as possible, so Debian developers can plug in their own setup
tools; the configlets support this also.

> > I think Debian desktop distribution shoud use a PGI installer 
> > (http://hackers.progeny.com/pgi/) for installation with automatic 
> > harware detection (PGI uses discover, mdetect and other debian tools for 
> > automatic hardware detection) and GNOME System Tools 
> > (http://www.gnome.org/projects/gst/) for configuration. In out country 
> > (Lithuania) we made beta version of user-friendly debian desktop, we are 
> > using PGI and Debian Configlets 
> > (http://hackers.progeny.com/configlets/), but Debian Configlets have 
> > many bugs and are integrated only with old gnome - 1.4.

Funny.  I don't see Mr. Kriauciunas's name in the Debian BTS.  If there
are so many bugs, why does he not report them?

To our knowledge, the configlets work well in an install environment;
the main issue I know about at this time is the problem with gaining
root access when using them post-install.

As for GNOME 2 support, this is on our list of things to do.  Joey Hess
and I have discussed very briefly the idea of merging debconf and the
configlets to some degree, possibly using "hints" embedded in debconf
templates to build more complex user interfaces than those possible with
debconf alone.  I have some ideas along those lines I will likely
include in future versions of the configlets.

> hmmm, I think there is a little problem with making GST the standard
> user-friendly config tools for debian: debian isn't only Gnome, and GST
> are currently Gnome based only (BTW the front-ends could be written
> using any library)... this is an obstacle to beat.

This is why debconf support is critical.  If GST is too GNOME-specific,
then support for KDE and text mode can be done via other means; as long
as all tools feed into debconf, there shouldn't be a problem with tools
getting out of sync.


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