Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/gst-to-umbrella

• Created: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:38:33 +0200 by DanielHolbach

• Contributors: MichaelVogt, SebastienBacher, ManuCornet

• Packages affected: gnome-system-tools, system-tools-backends, liboobs

Summary

The ["DesktopTeam"] is looking for a solution to the problems we're facing with the current gnome-system-tools.

• the code has grown over a long time.
• the languages of choice don't make debugging easier:
  • C for the frontends
  • Perl for the backends
• It would be preferrable to re-use existing tools like adduser, pppoeconf and the like and control them via nice and easy interfaces.

Rationale

The ["DesktopTeam"] feels this step is necessary, because

• graphical system tools are very important to new users
• the choice of infrastructure is very hard to maintain (perl for the backends, C for the frontends) and grew (a bit wildly) over the time,
• upstream and distro maintenance is not satisfactory, we have many grave and weird bugs.

  • [https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bugs gnome-system-tools (Ubuntu) bugs], [https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/system-tools-backends/+bugs system-tools-backends (Ubuntu) bugs]

  • [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=gnome-system-tools&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=NEEDINFO&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0= (upstream) bugs]

  • the existing packages are heavily patched and those patches are not included upstream.

Use cases

My mother tries to change her password through the users-admin. After confirming the dialog and rebooting the box she can't login any more.

Michael wants to package a new upstream release. He spends seven hours on merging our existing patches.

Tollef is called for assistance on a weird amd64 bug. Although being an expert, it takes him six hours to find the cause in a weird, self-written crypt() function.

Scope

Design

Implementation

1. The ["DesktopTeam"] could gradually try to replace system tools. The first step could involve to use SimpleGladeApp to be able to re-use the existing interfaces. ["ManuCornet"]'s ["ServicesAdminRedesign"] considerations will be taken into account. (We'd already have a Codename for the project: Umbrella (The name Umbrella was chosen by picking a random word from Finnegans wake. Apart from that it contains the Ubuntu-'u' and can be understood as an umbrella project shipping a set of system tools.

2. Look into other System Tools.

Code

Data preservation and migration

We will continue on shipping gnome-system-tools and its infrastructure in edgy - this will make it easy to pedal back, if we need to.

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec