Re: Linuxconf
John Goerzen Linux Expo Laptop <jgoerzen@cs.twsu.edu> writes:
> On Fri, May 29, 1998 at 02:21:45PM -0500, David Engel wrote:
> > On Thu, May 28, 1998 at 09:48:56AM -0500, John Goerzen Linux Expo Laptop wrote:
[snip]
> I was having troubles compiling it until somebody mentioned that it doesn't
> work with EGCS. I took a look, and for some strange reason, g++ in hamm is
> the EGCS g++ and not the GNU g++ (odd!). I will give it a try with the GNU
> g++ soon.
The reason is that g++ is outdated and broken. No exceptions and a
broken std template library. The first thing to to would be to clean
up linuxconf source to work with any c++ compiler. No gcc or egcs
specific stuff.
> > For better or for worse, I believe Linux is on the verge of gaining
> > mainstream acceptance. Before that can happen though, something has
> > to make it easier for less technically adept users to configure and
> > maintain Linux (without dumbing things down, of course). If my
> > preconceptions of linuxconf are close, it could fill this need.
>
> Yes, I think it looks good. We still need to do a bit of work on ease of
> installation; particularly for those that are not familiar with the concept
> of multiple partitions. FreeBSD has a nice "auto-fill" mode where it will
> automatically create partitions of appropriate sizes using whatever space is
> available on the disk.
It would be difficult to have two Linux Systems on one drive (one for
testing, one for working) or to have partitions containing iso images
or mirrors of ftp sites. There are too many cases where the defaults
wont work, so supposing some values in the installation guide and help
text is far better.
> > How tightly dependent are the modules on the rest of the linuxconf
> > source? More specifically, is it practical to have a linuxconf-dev
>
> This is one of the issues that the speaker addressed. Currently, modules
> apparently require recompilation when a new linuxconf is released. This
> could pose a problem for Debian, however, he said that there is going to be
> work on this and hopefully there will be a solution soon.
>
> My initial idea was that each package that has config info could provide a
> Linuxconf module instead of asking questions in postinst. The problem,
> though, is with binary-all packages -- being written in C++, Linuxconf
> modules are all architecture-specific and thus will pose some problems in
> this context. I do not know what a good solution would be at this time.
It should be possible to define a std. interface for modules. There
could be one for bash, one for perl, one for python, ... The
Interface comes with the linuxconf Package and the module tells what
interface type it wants (#!/bin/bash is bash interface). Thus one
could have arch-all modules.
> The author will be having a session specifically on Linuxconf module
> programming tomorrow, so I will see about asking some of these questions.
Tell us more. :)
> BTW, the linuxconf website is http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf
>
> John
May the Source be with you.
Mrvn
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