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

[Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo <jsogo debian org>]

On Wed, Nov 06, 2002 at 11:23:22AM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote:
> 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.

 Agreed.

> 
> > > 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.

  GST uses backends written in Perl. What we're proposing is to develop
  those backends together among PGI and GST hackers. 
  
  About the frontends, what you say could also be done. But Debian
  should only plug tools for Debian specific things (for example apt).
  GST aims to provide a unified system configuration for every distro,
  so if each Debian developer can plug a config tool for his package
  (and that config tool is not provided upstream, so other distros can
  have it), GST starts to loose their goal.

  IMHO, the way to go is the following: for example, PGI hackers want to
  add support for network config (I know that it's yet developed, but
  it's an example). They write the backend for Debian, and develop a
  frontend. Both are included in GST. If sometime later RedHat folks
  want to add support for network configuration in their distro, they
  only have to extend the backend with those fuctions that are someway
  different than Debian ones, but the front-end doesn't care about the
  internal functions, as it talks with an intermediate an well defined
  API. What I mean is:

    Fronted wants configured interfaces, so it asks
      network_get_interfaces ();

    In that funtion you have:
       if DISTRO="Debian" then network_get_interfaces_debian ();
       if DISTRO="Red Hat" then network_get_interfaces_redhat ();

    This way, if Red Hat uses the same config files as Debian, the line
    could say
       if DISTRO="Red Hat" then network_get_interfaces_debian ();
  

> 
> > 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.

  Only GNOME part of GST is GNOME-specific. Backends are written in
  Perl, and you can write other front-ends over them (for text or KDE).
  Of course, GST and back-ends should be splitted in different packages.

-- 
  Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo
     jsogo@debian.org

PGP signature