Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
* "Daniel" == Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Daniel> Also, it might be intriguing to (ab)use the VFS support in Daniel> these programs to convert them into Apt frontends. I'm not Daniel> sure how far you could go, but it would be interesting to see Daniel> if it worked. Check cd #apt or cd #dpkg on the mc command line. Ciao, Martin -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Webmin works... was Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Seth Cohn wrote : > On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Frederic Peters wrote: > > - webmin: I think it is useful (and nice) not to have to launch mozilla > >to add an user or change a password. > Excuse me? if you don't want to launch a browser (and NOT mozilla thank > you... ANY browser, even lynx will (mostly) work), then you should use a > command line tool: adduser and passwd are fine for any user who is smart > enough to know how. For the rest, a web pointandclick is one of the only > interfaces they not only _should_ know how to use, but is also remote > controlable easily (yes, true sysadmins can telnet/ssh/remoteX, but we are > talking newbies here), so Windows/Mac/whatever users with a Linux server > to admin can fix things from a remote machine. > [rest of webmin description skipped] ok I shouldn't have talked about mozilla. But I'm not talking about ME here. I know how to configure my network, add an user or whatever we're talking about. [and I already used webmin] This is about the guy who installed Debian for a non-technical reason (_I_ choosed Debian over other distribs because it was the non-commercial one and I expect that some new users choosed it for the same reason). And we should do our best to help those persons be happy with Debian. I don't think webmin is the perfect answer because I have no idea about the way to integrate it nicely on a desktop. If Jaldhar manage to do this: great! but I still have doubts. > If you want to create a new tool, please _don't_. After trying all of the > horrible ones like yast & linuxconf, and installing hundreds of systems > for people at LUG meetings, I'm convinced that if you want something that > makes sense to new users, just spend your energy improving webmin. Even if I thought webmin was the panacea I wouldn't be able to do it because of Perl. > Instead of creating yet another rift, let's add true Debian support to it. > A single frontend makes much more sense than tons of incompatible, > non-similar frontends. A non-power user who switches from Mandrake or > Caldera or RedHat or whatever to Debian (and I have many at our local LUG > who are doing just that...) shouldn't have to learn a whole new frontend, > when something like webmin can handle the cross distributional > differences, which it can and does well right now. Are there volunteers to add true Debian support to webmin ? -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
At 10:13 PM 09/07/2000 +, you wrote: I don't object to a web-browser, personally. I do object to having to install and configure a Web server (!!) to set up the machine, for the same reason I object to needing a Web server to view documentation (eg, doc-central depends on apache). Webmin has it's own webserver built in (via perl). No external webserver required. In fact, I believe that a base system will provide everything needed. Jaldhar said he's changed the package to remove the libnet-ssleay-perl depends. which leaves (and I don't have his current version to check) Depends: perl5, debconf any reason it can't use debconf-tiny? I don't see why not... No reason a small webmin stripped down to just Debian configuration requirements couldn't fire up and allow complete remote configuration of a box. Imagine, you stick in a boot floppy/CD, it grabs the base-package from the net, unpacks it, and then goes into 'configure me' mode, by running mini-webmin. You could add users, configs, more stuff via apt, etc, all from a remote machine. You might never have to log in at the console EVER, if it's a server. In fact, with a scripty boot floppy/CD, you wouldn't need a monitor or a keyboard to ever be hooked up. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Thu, Sep 07, 2000 at 01:06:59AM +0200, Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > - webmin: I think it is useful (and nice) not to have to launch mozilla >to add an user or change a password. I don't object to a web-browser, personally. I do object to having to install and configure a Web server (!!) to set up the machine, for the same reason I object to needing a Web server to view documentation (eg, doc-central depends on apache). Daniel -- /- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -\ | This space |Who is General Failure, and why| |intentionally|is he reading my hard drive? | | left blank. | | \--- (if (not (understand-this)) (go-to http://www.schemers.org)) / -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
> This is good for Debian, since we want something cross-platform, and > possibly even cross-kernel (Hurd, anyone?). Adding a network config for > Debian, Rene Mayrhofer said he was making a start on this. He's away for a few weeks, when he gets back, I'll find out how far he's come. > a dpkg/apt module, Someone pointed out to me that dpkg is already part of the standard software package module. No apt module though. Seth -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Nate Duehr wrote: > Linuxconf is very broken (and it's documented in the Readme's provided > with the .deb) on Debian, and it mangles perfectly good config files > into nasty-looking ones that sysadmins who prefer vi usually dislike > reading. Another point in webmin's favor. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that editing mail aliases in webmin _didn't_ blow up my heavily commented /etc/aliases file. In fact, it respected the # signs, understood that they were disabled entries, and left everything intact. I personally use an line editor on it, but this way, someone can, if need be, add an alias and NOT screw my systems up. Another thing in webmin's favor: it currently supports BSD and Solaris and more: Operating system Supported versions Sun Solaris 2.5 , 2.5.1 , 2.6 , 7 , 8 Caldera OpenLinux eServer 2.3 Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 , 2.4 Redhat Linux 4.0 , 4.1 , 4.2 , 5.0 , 5.1 , 5.2 , 6.0 , 6.1 , 6.2 Slackware Linux 3.2 , 3.3 , 3.4 , 3.5 , 3.6 , 4.0 , 7.0 Debian Linux 1.3 , 2.0 , 2.1 , 2.2 SuSE Linux5.1 , 5.2 , 5.3 , 6.0 , 6.1 , 6.2 , 6.3 , 6.4 Corel Linux 1.0 , 1.1 TurboLinux4.0 , 6.0 Cobalt Linux 2.2 , 5.0 Mandrake Linux5.3 , 6.0 , 6.1 , 7.0 , 7.1 Delix DLD Linux 5.2 , 5.3 , 6.0 MkLinux DR2.1 , DR3 XLinux1.0 LinuxPL 1.0 Linux From Scratch2.2 FreeBSD 2.1 , 2.2 , 3.0 , 3.1 , 3.2 , 3.3 , 3.4 , 4.0 , 5.0 OpenBSD 2.5 , 2.6 , 2.7 BSDI 3.0 , 3.1 , 4.0 HP/UX 10.01 , 10.10 , 10.20 , 10.30 , 11 SGI Irix 6.0 , 6.1 , 6.2 DEC/Compaq OSF/1 4.0 IBM AIX 4.3 SCO UnixWare 7 , 2 SCO OpenServer5 MacOS Server X1.0 , 1.2 This is good for Debian, since we want something cross-platform, and possibly even cross-kernel (Hurd, anyone?). Adding a network config for Debian, a dpkg/apt module, and a debconf module, I think we'd be all set... Jaldhar, can you pry yourself away from imap for a few minutes and get the webmin stuff uploaded to incoming? :) I'd like to see what's you've changed... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Frederic, I think that easier config is a worthy goal. I have long mused about how to teach a single tool about the myriad config files. But I'm too lazy to actually write one. On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Frederic Peters wrote: > Seth Cohn wrote : > > >So, yes, why reinvent the wheel, if there are allready n^x conftools > > >around with a new one popping up monthly (webmin, COAS, linuxconf, > > >debconf, yast, ..., ..., ...) ? It's not going to make anything > > >easier. > > > Agreed. If you want to do something USEFUL, write a better webmin, debconf > > or linuxconf module. > > - webmin: I think it is useful (and nice) not to have to launch mozilla >to add an user or change a password. > - debconf: dpkg-reconfigure users ? debconf is there to configure >applications and I don't want to replace it at all. It is just not >suited for some tasks > - linuxconf: Marco d'Itri sent a comment I agree with (excepted for >the insecure part where I don't have enough knowledge to judge) "why reinvent the wheel" was one of my first reactions, too. I'm glad to see some discussion of alternatives. I hope that someone (Frederic?) will take notes and write a summary on a web page somewhere. I'm reminded of the document that someone (Joey Hess?) wrote comparing packaging tools. I'd like to see a little more in depth comparison, though. For example, someone says that linuxconf "sucks, is buggy, and insecure"; but does that make it harder to fix than to reinvent? Why? It is said to be "tainted by redhat", but how about fixing it to allow customization for different distribution flavours? I used linuxconf as an example, but the same questions apply to all other config tools. Gnome, for instance, has a config tool. I'm sure kde does too. Presumably you want a tool independent of these desktops, but it would be great if it interacted with Gnome's tool. Maybe one could even separate the back-end from the GNOME front-end, and re-use it? Even if you can't use a single line of code from any of the existing projects, studying them allows you to steal worthwhile ideas and learn from their mistakes. -S -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 06:59:57PM +0200, Frederic Peters wrote: > > Ricardo Javier Cardenes Medina wrote : > > We can fill automagically some of these values. If a user types in > > "192.168.1.15" as IP, and the interface is eth*, we can figure out that > > the gateway will be 192.168.1.1, and class C (255.255.255.0). > > > > The user will be able to modify those values as he/she is going through > > the options, if they are wrong. > Actually the boot floppies already does that nicely. > (and yes, it is nice) Yes, I know this :) But we have to provide some way to the user to re-configure it without having to type: dpkg-reconfigure netbase Why? Well... Maybe some users are "blind", or simply they have not experience enough with Debian to know that this is one (of multiple) way... O:) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 12:40:19PM +0200, T.Pospisek's MailLists wrote: > So why not linuxconf? AFAIK it's the most powerful conftool around and > there's *even* a .deb version of it. Further on it's pretty trivial to > write modules for it and once done you can interface to the conftool > through the command line, the web, textinterface, x-interface, ... Linuxconf is very broken (and it's documented in the Readme's provided with the .deb) on Debian, and it mangles perfectly good config files into nasty-looking ones that sysadmins who prefer vi usually dislike reading. It also has various security issues. (Look at what it does to DNS configuration files sometime. Ugh!) -- Nate Duehr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> GPG Key fingerprint = DCAF 2B9D CC9B 96FA 7A6D AAF4 2D61 77C5 7ECE C1D2 Public Key available upon request, or at wwwkeys.pgp.net and others. pgpv4rsVwTUaK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Webmin works... was Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Seth Cohn wrote: > If you haven't tried webmin, please do. http://www.webmin.com > Last time I looked, webmin packages were sitting in incoming, but rejected > due to the ssl option (Jaldhar wanted it in main, and James bounced it > over the ssl linking). The deb installed fine for me from > http://incoming.debian.org/REJECT/ > Since then I've packaged 0.80, made a seperate ssl package to satisfy the ftpmasters, split out each module into its own package and made other improvements suggested by various people. If I weren't up to my armpits in imap stuff, I might actually get around to uploading all this. :-) -- Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Webmin works... was Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Frederic Peters wrote: > > Agreed. If you want to do something USEFUL, write a better webmin, debconf > > or linuxconf module. > - webmin: I think it is useful (and nice) not to have to launch mozilla >to add an user or change a password. Excuse me? if you don't want to launch a browser (and NOT mozilla thank you... ANY browser, even lynx will (mostly) work), then you should use a command line tool: adduser and passwd are fine for any user who is smart enough to know how. For the rest, a web pointandclick is one of the only interfaces they not only _should_ know how to use, but is also remote controlable easily (yes, true sysadmins can telnet/ssh/remoteX, but we are talking newbies here), so Windows/Mac/whatever users with a Linux server to admin can fix things from a remote machine. Webmin is _really_ well done, and VERY customizable. I have given users access to only certain sections, because that is all I have had time to train them on, and I don't want them messing with other settings. It's secure... it uses ssl if you want. It's supported by a strong mailing list, developers, and outside vendors it's been _packaged_ already. It requires NO httpd, just perl (so it will run on a base-floppies system, without X or anything else) Daniel suggested this list: (a) set up a printer. (b) Add/delete users (c) Install and configure hardware devices and modules (d) Manage fstab and partitions? (e) package management stuff (f) Set up a PPP connection. (g) See available documentation (h) Display network configuration (IP address) as well as modifying it. Every one of these can be done right _now_ by webmin, I believe, with the possible exception of (e), because I think there is an RPM but not a dpkg/apt module. I bet coding an apt-get module would be trivial. The nice thing is that if you want to write a module for it, it's easy. If you do anything Debian specific, great, webmin is smart enough to know the OS it runs on, and will use that module. If you haven't tried webmin, please do. http://www.webmin.com Last time I looked, webmin packages were sitting in incoming, but rejected due to the ssl option (Jaldhar wanted it in main, and James bounced it over the ssl linking). The deb installed fine for me from http://incoming.debian.org/REJECT/ If you want to create a new tool, please _don't_. After trying all of the horrible ones like yast & linuxconf, and installing hundreds of systems for people at LUG meetings, I'm convinced that if you want something that makes sense to new users, just spend your energy improving webmin. Mandrake did. They wanted something that looked nicer, so they created new icons for it and contributed to development (wrote a postfix module among others). Caldera is sponsoring it at this point, also. Instead of creating yet another rift, let's add true Debian support to it. A single frontend makes much more sense than tons of incompatible, non-similar frontends. A non-power user who switches from Mandrake or Caldera or RedHat or whatever to Debian (and I have many at our local LUG who are doing just that...) shouldn't have to learn a whole new frontend, when something like webmin can handle the cross distributional differences, which it can and does well right now. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Frederic Peters ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > - debconf: dpkg-reconfigure users ? debconf is there to configure >applications and I don't want to replace it at all. It is just not >suited for some tasks agreed, but effort should be made to keep the interface consistent between GUI admin tools and the gtk interface to debconf. > - linuxconf: Marco d'Itri sent a comment I agree with (excepted for >the insecure part where I don't have enough knowledge to judge) someone also pointed out that linuxconf is geared to redhat systems, and would make use on a debian system ugly. -- Jacob Kuntz underworld.net/~jake [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Seth Cohn wrote : > >So, yes, why reinvent the wheel, if there are allready n^x conftools > >around with a new one popping up monthly (webmin, COAS, linuxconf, > >debconf, yast, ..., ..., ...) ? It's not going to make anything > >easier. > Agreed. If you want to do something USEFUL, write a better webmin, debconf > or linuxconf module. - webmin: I think it is useful (and nice) not to have to launch mozilla to add an user or change a password. - debconf: dpkg-reconfigure users ? debconf is there to configure applications and I don't want to replace it at all. It is just not suited for some tasks - linuxconf: Marco d'Itri sent a comment I agree with (excepted for the insecure part where I don't have enough knowledge to judge) -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Sep 06, "T.Pospisek's MailLists" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >So why not linuxconf? AFAIK it's the most powerful conftool around and Because it sucks, is insecure and is buggy as hell. Looks like three good reasons, to me. -- ciao, Marco -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Wed, Sep 06, 2000 at 07:20:54PM +0200, Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > > Daniel Burrows wrote : > > I've been thinking along these lines too, but didn't want to mention it as > > I'm not likely to be able to help implement it. I'm thinking in terms of > > something slightly simpler, though: just the stuff a "normal" user (whatever > > that means) would need to set up and perform simple maintenance of a system. > Could you list 'user tasks' ? (the 'whatever that means' doesn't help) Part of the reason is that these aren't well defined :), but here goes. Most of these aren't Debian-specific, so there are probably projects doing them already; if you feel that doing your own configurators is a good idea, though. I'm also leaving out installation issues (X could still be simpler to set up), since those are more appropriately handled by boot-floppies. Some of these are sysadminy-type things, but I'm really thinking of an extremely minimal level of GUI support--what you'd need to set up a family computer, say; for instance, the user-add/delete tool probably doesn't need to support all sorts of fancy user-database options initially, /etc/passwd is (IMO) fine. People who are setting up NIS, LDAP, etc, etc should be able to handle manual configuration. (a) set up a printer. Lots of options (resolution, dithering, etc) would be nice, but not necessary since most people don't use them (as far as I know (aside from printing on both sides of the paper (duplex printing)), which even I don't know how to achieve in Linux) (b) Add/delete users, configure user accounts. Reset user passwords, lock users out temporarily, change user shells. Similar operations on groups. (this could perhaps be run as a normal user to only affect the current user's environment, and as root to edit all users) This could pipe commands into the system utilities to avoid setuid GUI programs (eg: "passwd", "chsh", etc) (c) Install and configure hardware devices and modules (mainly available already in modconf, possibly just run that) (d) Manage fstab and partitions? (this is mainly done at install time; people who install a new drive will need to do this, although anyone who can correctly install a new hard drive in their computer is arguably skilled enough to add an fstab entry) (e) package management stuff -- probably should be left to the (unwritten/incomplete) graphical APT frontends. (f) Set up a PPP connection. Again, the tools are there, but they need to be prominently displayed in some sort of "newbie system setup" tool. (g) See available documentation -- manpages, info pages, HTML/text/PS documentation collected into one interface. This is (IMO) a biggie. Currently, all the good tools I've seen require you to have a working Web server on the system--I think the default Apache setup might work (haven't checked it), but requiring all sorts of newbies to install a webserver concerns me both from a resources point of view (it eats VM) as well as from a security point of view (Apache is fairly secure, but running unnecessary servers is generally a no-no, especially since newbies are less likely to keep up with security updates) Gnome's help browser is not a bad start, but it doesn't support Debian's HTML and text documentation; perhaps it could be extended to do so. (h) Display network configuration (IP address) as well as modifying it. (think dynamic addresses; eg, DHCP or PPP) I think that's it for now. Maybe more will come to me later :) Daniel -- /- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -\ | CCs of list | Fate always wins...| | replies are | at least, when people stick to the rules. | |welcome. |-- Terry Pratchett, _Interesting Times_ | \- The Turtle Moves! -- http://www.lspace.org / -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
So, yes, why reinvent the wheel, if there are allready n^x conftools around with a new one popping up monthly (webmin, COAS, linuxconf, debconf, yast, ..., ..., ...) ? It's not going to make anything easier. Agreed. If you want to do something USEFUL, write a better webmin, debconf or linuxconf module. Webmin is really easy to write for, and it has no current Debian network config. Writing one would be VERY useful, the upstream is very supportive, and it's a nice package for newbies and advanced users alike. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Daniel Burrows wrote : > I've been thinking along these lines too, but didn't want to mention it as > I'm not likely to be able to help implement it. I'm thinking in terms of > something slightly simpler, though: just the stuff a "normal" user (whatever > that means) would need to set up and perform simple maintenance of a system. Could you list 'user tasks' ? (the 'whatever that means' doesn't help) > I haven't used linuxconf much; could you extend that for this task, or > is it too much of a pain? I don't think _I_ could extend (see my other mail). > The specific thing that triggered this thought for me was the realization > that setting up a printer on Debian is still pretty much black magic (even for > a fairly experienced user), especially compared to the tools provided with > other distros (RedHat, for instance, has a pretty nice printer configurator) Added printer configuration to the list of things to do. > If I were doing it, I'd use Python, but I would definitely recommend against > any compiled language. (there's no really heavy processing or low-level > operations; it's mostly high-level logic, parsing of data, and storing of > output data, which is where Python (for instance) particularly shines) I like Python too despite the fact the current proof of concepts are in C. (design in C, code in Python, weird). > > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg > That looks pretty nice..haven't looked at the code yet. I hope you store > this stuff in the "standard" config files instead of hiding it in some obscure > directory somewhere? :) (yeah, this clobbers comments, but I assume that if > you're using the GUI tools you aren't sticking comments into your > configuration :P ) [1] Using standard Debian configuration files; no /etc/sysconfig/ here. > > PS2: _don't_ send me copies of your mails. I'm subscribed to debian-devel. > Aren't there headers that you can set to tell mutt not to do that? > > Oh, wait, there are still people who don't use mutt. Nevermind. :) Poor guys... -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Jules Bean wrote : > On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 06:24:28PM +0200, Frederic Peters wrote: > > So I drew the conclusion that what Debian needs for those users is simple > > GUI tools. [some will respond here with "we don't want those users" and I > > won't agree. This flamewar already happened. GUI tools doesn't mean you > > have to use them. blah blah blah.] > Warning: this is anecdotal. It's not a powerful logical argument. I don't need stinky logical argument :) > Beware. GUI admin tools are often written badly, they often fail to take > into account every possible configuration and break strangely when > invoked with a configuration they don't understand. They often have > bugs, they often fail to give reliable or sensible error or status > messages. In short, they often make the OS appear worse than it is: > Redhat has a family of Tk GUI tools which, sometimes, exemplify this > problem. > > Summary: If you write GUI admin tools, think very hard about how you > will make them as robust and complete as the commandline ones. It is > not easy. This is Debian. It will be done the right way. I really believe it. [I told you about logical arguments before...] -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
T.Pospisek's MailLists wrote : > So why not linuxconf? AFAIK it's the most powerful conftool around and > there's *even* a .deb version of it. Further on it's pretty trivial to > write modules for it and once done you can interface to the conftool > through the command line, the web, textinterface, x-interface, ... > > So, yes, why reinvent the wheel, if there are allready n^x conftools > around with a new one popping up monthly (webmin, COAS, linuxconf, > debconf, yast, ..., ..., ...) ? It's not going to make anything > easier. I don't think Linuxconf is an appropriate tool for Debian systems. The reason is that it is developed with Red Hat in mind and it is not easy to make it match our way of doing things. (Actually linuxconf is already packaged so you might try it and Stefan Gybas ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) could certainly tell you how much linuxconf is tainted by Red Hat). This means for example it will have its own tool to configure a MTA (and it would probably be sendmail) while it would be as easy as 'dpkg-reconfigure --frontend=gtk exim' to get a nice way of configuring an MTA (actually a gtk frontend _did_ exist (perl+GTK.pm) but was killed off in debconf 0.3.10)). The other problem I have with Linuxconf is its size: it tries to do everything in one tool and this shows (Installed-Size: 7860) while I would greatly prefer several little tools targeted to individual things. The last thing is that it doesn't deal really well with user-modified files (something I think is mandatory). Frederic -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
John Goerzen wrote : > > I started coding proof of concepts thingies; they should be in my home > > directory on master (~fpeters/, is this accessible from http ?) soon. > > There is also a screenshot at > > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg > I think the best would be to make a nice front-end for debconf. This was phase 2 of my secret plan but since you asked for it I'll have to tell you I completly agree with you but debconf is not appropriate to add users (for example). But bringing back to life the GTK frontend for debconf has to be done. (actually I looked at the old code but I didn't like Perl enough to understand half the lines). -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Ricardo Javier Cardenes Medina wrote : > We can fill automagically some of these values. If a user types in > "192.168.1.15" as IP, and the interface is eth*, we can figure out that > the gateway will be 192.168.1.1, and class C (255.255.255.0). > > The user will be able to modify those values as he/she is going through > the options, if they are wrong. Actually the boot floppies already does that nicely. (and yes, it is nice) -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 11:08:17PM -0400, Jacob Kuntz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was
heard to say:
> Daniel Burrows ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> > Erm, how many 'newbies' are going to know what a class A vs class C
> > network
> > is, or what a "gateway" is, versus the number who'll freak out and run in
> > terror?
>
> ok, now i hate seeing free apps/desktop systems that just copy windows, and
> i dislike even more the idea that windows is a good standard to follow, but
> i do have to disagree with you on this point.
>
> windows doesn't hide the gateway from you, it's there right under netmask.
> lots of newbies use windows. i'd go so far as to say many people reading
> this list probably started on windows. have any of us "freaked out and ran
> away"?
>
> as far as the network class thing, lets just make sure it's possible to have
> classless subnets, too.
Sorry, I should've been more verbose..
First, the suggested "gateway" doesn't let you enter your gateway; it lets
you give a hint to the underlying code about your gateway. (Windows, since
you brought it up, lets you just say what your gateway is directly)
In my experience, most naive users do one of two things to set up a network:
(a) it's autoconfigured (DHCP or PPP)
(b) the network people give them a long list of parameters to enter
(IP address, netmask, gateway, DNS server, etc)
In the first (and arguably the preferable) case, this is unnecessary.
In the second case, the class doesn't matter, and will just confuse them
("My instructions say we need a netmask of 255.255.255.0, how do I enter that?")
This is an interesting suggestion though, and maybe munging the set of
questions asked will eliminate this problem (eg, show in the questions what
the result of each choice will be: Class C => 255.0.0.0 or whatever)
Daniel
--
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| intentionally | "Oh my god, we're surrounded!" "Run away, run away!" |
| left blank. | -- Fluble|
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Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Frederic Peters wrote: > don't have tested yet. It would be a good idea to avoid duplicated work. So why not linuxconf? AFAIK it's the most powerful conftool around and there's *even* a .deb version of it. Further on it's pretty trivial to write modules for it and once done you can interface to the conftool through the command line, the web, textinterface, x-interface, ... So, yes, why reinvent the wheel, if there are allready n^x conftools around with a new one popping up monthly (webmin, COAS, linuxconf, debconf, yast, ..., ..., ...) ? It's not going to make anything easier. *t Tomas Pospisek SourcePole - Linux & Open Source Solutions Elestastrasse 18, 7310 Bad Ragaz, Switzerland Tel: 081 330 77 11 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 11:08:17PM -0400, Jacob Kuntz wrote: > ok, now i hate seeing free apps/desktop systems that just copy windows, and > i dislike even more the idea that windows is a good standard to follow, but > i do have to disagree with you on this point. > > [...] > > as far as the network class thing, lets just make sure it's possible to have > classless subnets, too. > Maybe the right way to do this is ordering the items to fill in a way that "naive" users have to type in the things we cannot figure out the first. Ex: Interface:[Choose one ] IP Address: ___.___.___.___ [ ] Auto (DHCP, Bootp, ...) Gateway: ___.___.___.___ Mask: ___.___.___.___ Class A [ ], B [ ], C [ ] ... We can fill automagically some of these values. If a user types in "192.168.1.15" as IP, and the interface is eth*, we can figure out that the gateway will be 192.168.1.1, and class C (255.255.255.0). The user will be able to modify those values as he/she is going through the options, if they are wrong. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 06:24:28PM +0200, Frederic Peters wrote: > So I drew the conclusion that what Debian needs for those users is simple > GUI tools. [some will respond here with "we don't want those users" and I > won't agree. This flamewar already happened. GUI tools doesn't mean you > have to use them. blah blah blah.] Warning: this is anecdotal. It's not a powerful logical argument. Beware. GUI admin tools are often written badly, they often fail to take into account every possible configuration and break strangely when invoked with a configuration they don't understand. They often have bugs, they often fail to give reliable or sensible error or status messages. In short, they often make the OS appear worse than it is: Redhat has a family of Tk GUI tools which, sometimes, exemplify this problem. Summary: If you write GUI admin tools, think very hard about how you will make them as robust and complete as the commandline ones. It is not easy. Jules -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Daniel Burrows ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > Erm, how many 'newbies' are going to know what a class A vs class C network > is, or what a "gateway" is, versus the number who'll freak out and run in > terror? ok, now i hate seeing free apps/desktop systems that just copy windows, and i dislike even more the idea that windows is a good standard to follow, but i do have to disagree with you on this point. windows doesn't hide the gateway from you, it's there right under netmask. lots of newbies use windows. i'd go so far as to say many people reading this list probably started on windows. have any of us "freaked out and ran away"? as far as the network class thing, lets just make sure it's possible to have classless subnets, too. -- Jacob Kuntz underworld.net/~jake [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I started coding proof of concepts thingies; they should be in my home > directory on master (~fpeters/, is this accessible from http ?) soon. > There is also a screenshot at > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg I think the best would be to make a nice front-end for debconf. > > Waiting your comments, > > Frederic > > PS: the philosophy behind looks like the one used by HelixCode in their > future admin tools (to configure SMB shares, resolv.conf, ...) that I > don't have tested yet. It would be a good idea to avoid duplicated work. > > PS2: _don't_ send me copies of your mails. I'm subscribed to debian-devel. > > -- > Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme > Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien > Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- John Goerzen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> www.complete.org Sr. Software Developer, Progeny Linux Systems, Inc.www.progenylinux.com #include <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think it would also be interesting to integrate this into Nautilus (the >new Gnome filemanager) and (now that KDE is finally legal) Konquerer. > > You could certainly display some package info this way -- in particular, >being able to display (in the Properties dialog box of these programs) what >package a file belongs to would be cool. (it can't be done efficiently yet, >but you could cache this information somehow, as dlocate does..) > > Also, it might be intriguing to (ab)use the VFS support in these programs >to convert them into Apt frontends. I'm not sure how far you could go, but >it would be interesting to see if it worked. Reminds me of the time my roommate and I took a Packages file, munged it a bit to make it into an mbox mail folder, and then he told Gnus to pretend the mbox was a newsgroup so that he could start killfiling packages. It's one of the stranger things I've ever done. It would, again, be interesting to see how far you could go in terms of crowbarring one metaphor into the other. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 09:26:57PM +0200, Karsten Tinnefeld <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > > So we'd have GUI tools for: > > - /etc/network/interfaces > > > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg > > Looks very nice, but at the moment there is just looks without any > intellicence. If having some gui it should transparently (display > resulting configurations) provice choices like these: > > Local class ( ) A ( ) B (X) C net. ( ) Internet. > > -> setting default netmask F^60^2, some 192.168.___.___ IP address > > Gateway ( ) static persistent ( ) static dialup ( ) dynamic dialup > [ ] as defaultroute. > > -> implying the most usual route commands Erm, how many 'newbies' are going to know what a class A vs class C network is, or what a "gateway" is, versus the number who'll freak out and run in terror? (not that this might not be useful; maybe the tools should eventually have multiple "user levels" like (eg) Sawmill..for now, though, I'd personally aim for the most naive users; the others will be able to handle the manual configuration) Since I'm not contributing code, though, you know what you can do with my opinion :) Daniel -- /- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -\ | This space | Exhilaration is that feeling you get just| |intentionally | after a great idea hits you, and just before | | left blank. | you realize what is wrong with it. | \--- Listener-supported public radio -- NPR -- http://www.npr.org / -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 03:16:26PM -0400, Matt Zimmerman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > - package information queries (a la apt-cache)...maybe this should be > integrated with a GUI package manager frontend (is gnome-apt still alive?) I think it would also be interesting to integrate this into Nautilus (the new Gnome filemanager) and (now that KDE is finally legal) Konquerer. You could certainly display some package info this way -- in particular, being able to display (in the Properties dialog box of these programs) what package a file belongs to would be cool. (it can't be done efficiently yet, but you could cache this information somehow, as dlocate does..) Also, it might be intriguing to (ab)use the VFS support in these programs to convert them into Apt frontends. I'm not sure how far you could go, but it would be interesting to see if it worked. Daniel -- /- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -\ | CCs of list | "So convenient a thing it is to be a| | replies are | reasonable creature, since it enables one | | welcome. | to find or make a Reason for everything| | | one has a mind to do." -- Franklin | \- The Turtle Moves! -- http://www.lspace.org / -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
> So we'd have GUI tools for: > - /etc/network/interfaces > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg Looks very nice, but at the moment there is just looks without any intellicence. If having some gui it should transparently (display resulting configurations) provice choices like these: Local class ( ) A ( ) B (X) C net. ( ) Internet. -> setting default netmask F^60^2, some 192.168.___.___ IP address Gateway ( ) static persistent ( ) static dialup ( ) dynamic dialup [ ] as defaultroute. -> implying the most usual route commands Karsten -- Karsten Tinnefeld [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fachbereich Informatik, Lehrstuhl 2 T +49 231 755-4737 Universität Dortmund, D-44221 Dortmund, Deutschland F +49 231 755-2047 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 06:24:28PM +0200, Frederic Peters wrote: > GUI tools. [some will respond here with "we don't want those users" and I > won't agree. This flamewar already happened. GUI tools doesn't mean you > have to use them. blah blah blah.] > > Something else we'd need is an option in the boot floppies that would > allow X to be autoconfigured and launched the first time the machine is > installed. (but this is beyond the scope of my RFC). > > So we'd have GUI tools for: > - /etc/network/interfaces > - alternatives > - adduser > - ... - bug reporting (a la reportbug) - package information queries (a la apt-cache)...maybe this should be integrated with a GUI package manager frontend (is gnome-apt still alive?) I would be willing to write some code for this project. > PS2: _don't_ send me copies of your mails. I'm subscribed to debian-devel. Fix your Mail-Followup-To, and well-behaved MUAs would take care of this. -- - mdz -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
On Tue, Sep 05, 2000 at 06:24:28PM +0200, Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: [anecdote snipped] > So I drew the conclusion that what Debian needs for those users is simple > GUI tools. [some will respond here with "we don't want those users" and I > won't agree. This flamewar already happened. GUI tools doesn't mean you > have to use them. blah blah blah.] I've been thinking along these lines too, but didn't want to mention it as I'm not likely to be able to help implement it. I'm thinking in terms of something slightly simpler, though: just the stuff a "normal" user (whatever that means) would need to set up and perform simple maintenance of a system. That might be as simple as collecting all the useful tools into one interface, or as complex as writing new tools to do this. Hardware autodetection is important, of course, as well as the detection and setup of new hardware (but that'll help everyone, and I think the boot-floppies team is working on it now) I haven't used linuxconf much; could you extend that for this task, or is it too much of a pain? The specific thing that triggered this thought for me was the realization that setting up a printer on Debian is still pretty much black magic (even for a fairly experienced user), especially compared to the tools provided with other distros (RedHat, for instance, has a pretty nice printer configurator) > Technically I thought about: > - toolkit: GTK+ (I would rather not use Gnome but that could be an > option and the tools could be integrated in the Gnome Control Center) > ["QT is now free software" messages to /dev/null, please] > - language: C/Perl/Python/... (doesn't matter) If I were doing it, I'd use Python, but I would definitely recommend against any compiled language. (there's no really heavy processing or low-level operations; it's mostly high-level logic, parsing of data, and storing of output data, which is where Python (for instance) particularly shines) > I started coding proof of concepts thingies; they should be in my home > directory on master (~fpeters/, is this accessible from http ?) soon. > There is also a screenshot at > http://gaby.netpedia.net/pics/Screenshot_GUI_tools.jpeg That looks pretty nice..haven't looked at the code yet. I hope you store this stuff in the "standard" config files instead of hiding it in some obscure directory somewhere? :) (yeah, this clobbers comments, but I assume that if you're using the GUI tools you aren't sticking comments into your configuration :P ) [1] > PS: the philosophy behind looks like the one used by HelixCode in their > future admin tools (to configure SMB shares, resolv.conf, ...) that I > don't have tested yet. It would be a good idea to avoid duplicated work. Being able to have someone else's tools support our system might or might not be less work.. (linuxconf springs to mind again, is it really that insufficient?) > PS2: _don't_ send me copies of your mails. I'm subscribed to debian-devel. Aren't there headers that you can set to tell mutt not to do that? Oh, wait, there are still people who don't use mutt. Nevermind. :) Good luck, Daniel [1] actually, that's an interesting idea: GUI tools that let people embed comments before/after specific blocks of configuration. (don't worry about it now, but maybe eventually..) -- /- Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -\ |The sigfile hits! |The only thing worse than infinite recursion| | You feel confused. |is infinite recursion. | \ Be like the kid in the movie! Play chess! -- http://www.uschess.org ---/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RFC: GUI tools for common Debian admin tasks
> I started coding proof of concepts thingies; they should be in my home > directory on master (~fpeters/, is this accessible from http ?) soon. Also available on http://va.debian.org/~fpeters/ [CMP] alternatives-0.1.tar.gz 05-Sep-2000 09:0296k [CMP] debnetconf-0.1.tar.gz 05-Sep-2000 09:02 100k Regards, Frederic -- Frederic Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>« Le travail a été ce que l'homme Debian GNU/Linux : http://www.debian.org a trouvé de mieux pour ne rien Gaby : http://gaby.netpedia.net faire de sa vie. » R. Vaneigem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
