KubuntuSystemTools

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Improve existing configuration tools and help create new ones. Improve existing Kubuntu system configuration tools and help create new ones.
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Breezy includes some new and improved configuration tools over Hoary, significantly the Guidance suite. We should improve the user interfaces of these tools, ensure they are bug free and encourage new tools by helping upstream. Breezy includes some new and improved system configuration tools over Hoary, significantly the Guidance suite. We should improve the user interfaces of these tools, ensure they are bug free and encourage new tools by helping upstream.
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== Use cases == == Use Cases ==
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Bob wants to set a program to run at a given time, he finds he has to learn crontab format and emacs (or even worse, kcron) to be able to do so. Bob bought a second monitor and wants to change his X display for dual head. He uses the new displayconfig tool from Guidance for this.
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Impi want a way for their users to set the network interface. Impi wants a way for their users to set the network interface but find the current tool insufficient.
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Alan wants to update his Apache configuration, but he doesn't want to learn all configuration settings of Apache. == Background ==

KNetworkConf is a KDE frontend to the gnome-system-tools network backend. Guidance is a collection of KControl modules written in Python which currently includes a user manager, runlevel editor and fstab editor.
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Improve knetworkconf and Guidance. Improve KNetworkConf and Guidance.
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To encourage more people to develop KDE administration utilities, we should focus on the simple, but powerful development language for Kubuntu which Guidance provides with its KControl PyKDE integration. Longer term Gnome System Tools may be moving to a dbus based separation using liboops which will require significant work for a KDE frontend. There is likely also to be a need for a KDE Network Manager frontend. Neither of these will be targets for dapper but at least one will probably be a target for dapper+1.

Encourage more people to develop Guidance style KDE administration utilities.
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knetwork conf has some significant bugs in setting the gateway and default route. We need to fix these for dapper. The user interface of knetworkconf does not fit on a 1024 screen, this is also important to fix. We should use the default Gnome Network Configuration Util frontend as an example for ideas on improving the knetworkconf user interface.

Longer term Gnome System Tools may be moving to a dbus based separation using liboops which will require significant work for a KDE frontend. There is likely also to be a need for a KDE Network Manager frontend. Neither of these will be targets for dapper but at least one will probably be a target for dapper+1.		 KNetworkConf has some significant bugs in setting the gateway and default route. We need to fix these for dapper. The user interface of KNetworkconf does not fit on a 1024 pixel wide screen, this is also important to fix. We should use the 'Gnome Network Configuration Utility' frontend as an example for ideas on improving the KNetworkConf user interface.
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The user interfaces for the Guidance tools are currently going through a usability review by openusability.org. We will work with the upstream Guidance developers to implement and add suggestions for usability. The user interfaces for the Guidance tools are currently going through a usability review by openusability.org. Jan Muehlig from OpenUsability says he will have a usability report this week. We will work with the upstream Guidance developers to implement and add suggestions for usability.
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The upstream Guidance developers are keen to add new tools to their suite. They are currently working on an X configuration tool. Other ideas include tools to manage crontabs, grub configuration editor, sudo configuration editor, keyboard selection and an Apache configuration tool (which could talk to a remote web server). We will ensure .pot files are generated by Guidance for inclusion in Rosetta. Guidance is in the playground module of KDE's SVN repository which gets very little translation work, so it will be an important first use of Rosetta.
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We will help the upstream developers in creating these tools and ensure they are well tested with Kubuntu. The upstream Guidance developers are keen to add new tools to their suite. They are currently working on an X configuration tool. Other ideas include tools to manage crontabs, grub configuration editor, sudo configuration editor, keyboard selection and an Apache configuration tool (which could talk to a remote web server). None of these are immediate goals for Dapper but we will work with upstream if they start to implement them.
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We should also provide some sample applications and documentation to encourage others in creating configuration tools including how to start working with Python and QT/KDE Bindings. There are already some good examples on the Internet (e.g. LUMA LDAP Browser http://luma.sourceforge.net/) We will also provide some sample applications and documentation to encourage others in creating configuration tools including how to start working with Guidance and PyKDE Bindings.
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As the number of modules grow we will have to be careful to not crowd System Settings with too many tools. The user interface for System Settings may have to be changed to handle more modules, e.g. to a vertical lineup rather than a horizontal one, as already exists in the KDE 4 branch. As the number of modules grow we will have to be careful to not crowd 'System Settings' with too many tools. The user interface for 'System Settings' may have to be changed to handle more modules, e.g. to a vertical lineup rather than a horizontal one, as already exists in the KDE 4 branch.
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== BoF agenda and discussion == For the existing modules:
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grub editor. sudo editor. Make knetworkconf better (networkmanager frontend?). ==== userconfig ====
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ldap admin/browser (LUMA already in breezy/dapper) No special plans besides implementing usability improvements suggested by the forthcoming report from OpenUsability.
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improve guidance user interfaces '''Update:''' report is now available, http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/review_guidance_malaga.pdf
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21:17 < _Sime> ... a decent way of selecting a keyboard and keyboard settings. (I want to choose my keyboard from a
               _picture_, not guessing if I have US international or whatever)		 ==== mountconfig ====
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21:18 < _Sime> understandable compose key support would be good to. Right now it is not obvious how you configure it. This means that mountconfig will need to accommodate non-root users who wish to mount via FUSE. Kubuntu will include fuse-kio bridge to support this.
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21:16 < _Sime> a decent cron editor thingy would be nice, something that actually showed what was going to happen when... Investigate if it is worth switching to HAL for hardware detection.
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KDE Apache Configuration Tool, it should provide remote uploads ==== serviceconfig ====

Use the libapt-front bindings for Python to speed up descriptions.

Further improvements are waiting on Ubuntu init scripts supporting the status command.

==== displayconfig ====

A new module for Dapper currently under development. Upstream are working to complete and debug singlehead support (mostly finished) and implement dualhead support.

Debugging and testing. Upstream will be making an effort to collect and test on different graphics cards and combinations of graphics cards (AGP and PCI). We will ensure the community helps with this effort by creating a test plan for testers and keeping track of results on a wiki page.

Post Dapper work should include integration with the X server and Xorg packages. displayconfig modifies /etc/X11/xorg.conf and can potentially make the GUI unusable.

Problems include:

  - if /etc/X11/xorg.conf has been updated then the server should automatically restart after the user logs out.

  - After restarting the server, confirming with the user that the new config is visible and wanted (+timeout).

  - Automatically restoring the last known working xorg.conf if the server crashes.

This needs to be further spec'ed and communicated to Xorg packagers/developers during the Dapper release cycle for Dapper+1.

Summary

Improve existing Kubuntu system configuration tools and help create new ones.

Rationale

Breezy includes some new and improved system configuration tools over Hoary, significantly the Guidance suite. We should improve the user interfaces of these tools, ensure they are bug free and encourage new tools by helping upstream.

Use Cases

Bob bought a second monitor and wants to change his X display for dual head. He uses the new displayconfig tool from Guidance for this.

Impi wants a way for their users to set the network interface but find the current tool insufficient.

Background

KNetworkConf is a KDE frontend to the gnome-system-tools network backend. Guidance is a collection of KControl modules written in Python which currently includes a user manager, runlevel editor and fstab editor.

Scope

Improve KNetworkConf and Guidance.

Longer term Gnome System Tools may be moving to a dbus based separation using liboops which will require significant work for a KDE frontend. There is likely also to be a need for a KDE Network Manager frontend. Neither of these will be targets for dapper but at least one will probably be a target for dapper+1.

Encourage more people to develop Guidance style KDE administration utilities.

Implementation

KNetworkConf

KNetworkConf has some significant bugs in setting the gateway and default route. We need to fix these for dapper. The user interface of KNetworkconf does not fit on a 1024 pixel wide screen, this is also important to fix. We should use the 'Gnome Network Configuration Utility' frontend as an example for ideas on improving the KNetworkConf user interface.

Guidance

The user interfaces for the Guidance tools are currently going through a usability review by openusability.org. Jan Muehlig from OpenUsability says he will have a usability report this week. We will work with the upstream Guidance developers to implement and add suggestions for usability.

We will ensure .pot files are generated by Guidance for inclusion in Rosetta. Guidance is in the playground module of KDE's SVN repository which gets very little translation work, so it will be an important first use of Rosetta.

The upstream Guidance developers are keen to add new tools to their suite. They are currently working on an X configuration tool. Other ideas include tools to manage crontabs, grub configuration editor, sudo configuration editor, keyboard selection and an Apache configuration tool (which could talk to a remote web server). None of these are immediate goals for Dapper but we will work with upstream if they start to implement them.

We will also provide some sample applications and documentation to encourage others in creating configuration tools including how to start working with Guidance and PyKDE Bindings.

As the number of modules grow we will have to be careful to not crowd 'System Settings' with too many tools. The user interface for 'System Settings' may have to be changed to handle more modules, e.g. to a vertical lineup rather than a horizontal one, as already exists in the KDE 4 branch.

For the existing modules:

userconfig

No special plans besides implementing usability improvements suggested by the forthcoming report from OpenUsability.

Update: report is now available, http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/review_guidance_malaga.pdf

mountconfig

This means that mountconfig will need to accommodate non-root users who wish to mount via FUSE. Kubuntu will include fuse-kio bridge to support this.

Investigate if it is worth switching to HAL for hardware detection.

serviceconfig

Use the libapt-front bindings for Python to speed up descriptions.

Further improvements are waiting on Ubuntu init scripts supporting the status command.

displayconfig

A new module for Dapper currently under development. Upstream are working to complete and debug singlehead support (mostly finished) and implement dualhead support.

Debugging and testing. Upstream will be making an effort to collect and test on different graphics cards and combinations of graphics cards (AGP and PCI). We will ensure the community helps with this effort by creating a test plan for testers and keeping track of results on a wiki page.

Post Dapper work should include integration with the X server and Xorg packages. displayconfig modifies /etc/X11/xorg.conf and can potentially make the GUI unusable.

Problems include:

  • - if /etc/X11/xorg.conf has been updated then the server should automatically restart after the user logs out. - After restarting the server, confirming with the user that the new config is visible and wanted (+timeout). - Automatically restoring the last known working xorg.conf if the server crashes.

This needs to be further spec'ed and communicated to Xorg packagers/developers during the Dapper release cycle for Dapper+1.

KubuntuSystemTools (last edited 2008-08-06 16:32:32 by localhost)