Configuration Tool

[Fitzcarraldo]

For the PCLinuxOS control center (or the mandriva control center) I couldn't find any code to look into...

didn't find any source either.. wonder where mandriva/pclinuxos have got there distro src repos..

See the answer to the second FAQ on the following Web page:

http://docs.pclinuxos.com/Faqs

[LordBernhard]

For the PCLinuxOS control center (or the mandriva control center) I couldn't find any code to look into...

didn't find any source either.. wonder where mandriva/pclinuxos have got there distro src repos..

See the answer to the second FAQ on the following Web page:

http://docs.pclinuxos.com/Faqs

thx for the link... so you just need to know the name ^^ didn't find it

[Fitzcarraldo]

^It's called drakconf

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... RPMS.main/

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... RPMS.main/

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... S.testing/

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... S.testing/

[Stupot]

Honest, I'm leaning more towards starting from scratch as well. My reasons are as follows:

1) Understanding. It is extremely hard to pick up others' code and figure out what they did. If you are going to actually go through their code to the point of understanding all of it (if that's even possible), it would be quicker to just write your own. I'm all for looking at how all the different control centers are implemented for gathering ideas and maybe even using snippets (giving credit of course), but I feel that it will not be easier to take Yast and modify it, rather it will be very frustrating that Yast will do some things but we won't be familar enough to change it in every way we wish.

2) ...well, I think my first point probably covered more than one point...

3) People Factor. We have no idea what the limitations are to Yast. If we change it too much, people will complain that it's not Yast at all. If we don't change it enough it could possibly not do what users need it to. There will be blood.

4) Experience. I realize that this probably isn't everyone's goal and from an application standpoint isn't a goal at all. However, for the sake of those who decide to develop this and possibly even for the Sabayon community in general, I feel it would be better if we made something completely on our own. We'll have much better understanding than when we started and a program to be proud of. We'll most likely be able to contribute much more in the future from the experience we've gained. All the ladies will dig us.

5) Easter Eggs. Everybody loves them.

Those are just my opinions and are not based on facts, rather based on experience (which I have a little as I am currently employed as a C++ applications developer, having recently graduated with my Computer Engineering degree). I'm not saying I'm dead on with all of my points. Yast could turn out to be really easy to make all the changes to and have it work perfectly. The problem is if it isn't, we'll have put too much time in to go the other way, where as if we start from scratch we always know what we're in for.

As for design, I am all about making a simple command line program to start off. It is very easy to pipe output from a command line program into a graphical program later on (I actually want to learn a little qt anyway). Also, if we are serious enough about this, I think we should probably find our own place to discuss this, rather than fill up this forum with needless development chatter (or possibly be given our own private forum here?).

As a side note, my reasoning for being interested is that I have been looking for a while for some way to contribute to the Sabayon community. This is probably as close to an ideal project for me as there ever was. I feel that configurations are the most confusing thing about linux and gentoo/Sabayon in particular and making it easier is something that needs to be addressed before linux can be by the majority of the masses.

[sjieke]

1) Understanding. It is extremely hard to pick up others' code and figure out what they did. If you are going to actually go through their code to the point of understanding all of it (if that's even possible), it would be quicker to just write your own. I'm all for looking at how all the different control centers are implemented for gathering ideas and maybe even using snippets (giving credit of course), but I feel that it will not be easier to take Yast and modify it, rather it will be very frustrating that Yast will do some things but we won't be familar enough to change it in every way we wish.

I can only agree because it is a longer description of what I meant when I said

We will also need time to understand the inner workings

4) Experience. I realize that this probably isn't everyone's goal and from an application standpoint isn't a goal at all. However, for the sake of those who decide to develop this and possibly even for the Sabayon community in general, I feel it would be better if we made something completely on our own. We'll have much better understanding than when we started and a program to be proud of. We'll most likely be able to contribute much more in the future from the experience we've gained. All the ladies will dig us.

And my equivalent for this was

Another reason is that we will have complete control and ... the challenge to design a good framework

To stop quoting you , I can say we would "start from scratch" for the same reasons...

As for the design, I don't fully agree. For the interface we should indeed start with command line, but the framework should be good from the start. If we don't think it over before starting and don't start with a (in our opinion ) perfect framework, we will encounter problems as things will get more advanced. And from experience I can say that problems by design (aka design flaws) are a pain in the as the solve and will most likely result in redesigning (refactoring) stuff.

I'm serious about this, so we do need a place to continue are discussion. A private forum would indeed be a solution (someone of the mods can/will do this?) or maybe a mailing-list somewhere?

[LordBernhard]

hm..ok.. seems like I've been outvoted ^^ well.. you've all made some very valid points..

so: I'll now try to compile yast on sabayon and if I'll succeed I'll look further.. if not I think I'll join your team on developing our own controlcenter.
BUT: after this summer I sadly won't have much time anymore (school starts again ) although I'll keep working on it (just not so much).

about the design: at least for the core framework (the library dealing with the actual files and writing/reading, etc.) I'll choose C++ and not a scripting language (*personal opinion*).. and yes.. I agree: the framework should be really good from the start and extendable.. otherwise we'll run into big problems later on when we try to extend/actually use it in GUI interfaces

I hope that in about 2 hours I have the first results on compiling yast.. cu then

[Stupot]

As for the design, I don't fully agree. For the interface we should indeed start with command line, but the framework should be good from the start.

I didn't actually comment on framework. I agree with you that it should be made completely modular. I don't see any other way. I really didn't say anything about it because I haven't put enough thought into it to give a suggestion as to how to implement it. Saying we need the perfect framework is one thing, but figuring out how to implement it will be very challenging. We're actually a good way off from starting any sort of coding (besides research on other projects) just because we've got to brainstorm a good long while as how to make an extremely solid framework that is easy to plug things into. I've already got some crazy ideas that float in and out of my head, but nothing solid yet.

Anyway, I feel as though I should stop rambling on here on this forum. I won't be posting on this thread anymore unless I think of something extremely profound.

[LordBernhard]

Ehm... yeh.. yast... compiling started pretty well (devtools worked), I'm atm fightig with the core dependencies (some packages are masked)... when I installed policykit my machine crashed (I think it overheated ) ... now my portage is broken

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=14328

if anyone can help me I can go on with compiling yast.. so please even if it's not used for sabayon it's still a nice research thingy

[sjieke]

I made a wiki page for the Sabayon Control Center on my usertalk as I didn't find a good place to put it elsewhere in the sabayon wiki. For now this will allow us to share our ideas and findings without cluttering this thread. I think you should be able to edit the page if you register on the sabayon wiki, so feel free to update it.

@LordBernhard
I can't help you as I'm not a portage specialist, but I would try to compile it in a virtual machine (like VirtualBox) to not brake my system.

[LordBernhard]

ah.. nice... so...I've just edited it to reflect my progress on trying to compile yast.

btw: I've solved the problem with emerge temporary (I'm using the emergency portage now (whatever it is)) ... everything worked good so far.. without any major flaws (except that I wasted a lot of time trying to get policykit to work.. now I've just disabled it).. seems like some headers are missing in gentoo/sabayon ..

my problem is now the package "Yast2" .. I can't get it to work yet cause of some missing makefiles (if I've understood the messages correctly)..

I'll investigate further.. I think if I get this to compile I can run the yast GUI on all frontends (ncurses, qt, gtk)