Re: Configuration frontend
Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@cs.leidenuniv.nl> writes:
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> Previously Mikolaj J. Habryn wrote:
> > o Changing packages to interface to a configuration layer rather
> > than just the user.
> >
> > This one is fairly simple, right? Does anyone have a problem with
> > dpkg-question or dpkg-config or whatever being used to do *all* user
> > interaction? Is there any situation that cannot be covered by the use
> > of 'dpkg-config variablename' and arbitrary data about variablename
> > being provided elsewhere?
>
> Wrong. dpkg-question is evil in that it only allows you to answer a
> single question at a time. That is silly of course, and it makes lots of
> sense to group questions together and ask them all at once in a single
> screen/dialog/webpage/whatever.
dpkg-question doesn't prevent that. Each deb file could contain a
"preconfig" script that launches a series of dpkg-questions. All
answeres are then saved by dpkg-question to a database or config
file. Sometime later the postinst is run and get all its information
form the database or the config file.
The GUI behind dpkg-question should work like a pipe. dpkg-question
just stuffs the questions in there and get answeres back. The GUI
itself doesn't have to quit itself after each question. No closing and
reopening of windows is neccessarry.
> Also another *very* important aspect is that we can change the degree of
> interactivity of the install. Did you see how many people were
> complaining on debian-devel a while ago about all the interactivity?
> It's really horrible if you are managing things like clusters or
> labrooms. Most users also don't care about most questions.
dpkg-question must be given a level and a default. If the Level of the
question is too low to bother the user, take the default (except when
a answere is already present from last time, which then would be the
default).
> > o Making a more flexible configuration language that will simplify
> > the task of making configuration scripts.
>
> That isn't planned at all.
Bash scripts should be fine for that.
> > I have a certain amount of experience with jumping headlong into
> > huge projects.
>
> We started this discussion back in may actually, so you can't say we're
> jumping into this..
But it got a lot hotter in the last weeks. :)
> Wichert.
May the Source be with you.
Goswin
Reply to: