Hi!
One of the initial goal of the work done on improving the GTK+ frontend
code was to make it provide a simple API for plugins. This work has
been completed and integrated in the current cdebconf version, but
useful plugins as yet to be written.
The first plugin to be written, obviously, is the graphical sibling to
the plugin gathering entropy, used in partman-crypto. The code for this
plugin was actually written while working on the rest of the GTK+
frontend [1] but as yet to be integrated properly.
[1] http://people.debian.org/~lunar/fe_gtk-plugin-entropy.c
I have taken another look at this, and I stumbled on a few issues on
which I would welcome advices…
The cdebconf-entropy source packages currently build a plugin named
"newt/plugin-entropy-text.so" which will introduces a new question type,
"entropy-text".
This question type is only used currently in partman-crypto by the
following template:
Template: partman-crypto/entropy-text
Type: entropy-text
_Description: Enter random characters
The encryption key for ${DEVICE} is now being created.
.
You can help speed up the process by entering random characters on
the keyboard, or just wait until enough keydata has been collected.
(NOTE: this can take a long time)
The straightforward way to add an entropy gathering plugin would be to
add another question type, for example "entropy-gui", add another
template in partman-crypto, duplicate all code checking for the plugin
and be done with it.
But I think this would be sub-obtimal. :)
I think it would make more sense to make a single question type, for
both frontend, named "entropy", and to have a single question template
in partman-crypto and a single code path handling both frontends.
But the strings displayed to the user becomes problematic: we need to
ask for random characters on the keyboard for the newt frontend, but it
would be a shame not to mention random mouse movements for the GTK+
frontend.
In the previous template, two strings are not actually relevant to the
question asked, but to the frontend asking it:
frontend specific
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
_Description: Enter random characters
The encryption key for ${DEVICE} is now being created.
.
> You can help speed up the process by entering random
same > characters on the keyboard, or just wait until enough
here > keydata has been collected. (NOTE: this can take a long
> time)
I thought about using the newly introduced debconf directives, but I
might just wanna play with a new toy here. So I really want to know
other advices before hacking… Here is the proposed implementation,
though:
Using directives would make the previous template look like:
_Description: ${!ENTROPY_SHORT_TITLE}
The encryption key for ${DEVICE} is now being created.
.
${!ENTROPY_GENERATE_MORE}
A new text template would be introduced in each plugin built by
cdebconf-entropy. Its short description would be used for
ENTROPY_SHORT_TITLE and ENTROPY_GENERATE_MORE would be its extended
description.
I'm not totally happy with this approach. If anyone can think about
anything (and I'm sure you can! ;)), please speak up. :)
Cheers,
--
Jérémy Bobbio .''`.
lunar@debian.org : :Ⓐ : # apt-get install anarchism
`. `'`
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