Re: Another job for the QA team

[Martin Schulze <joey@finlandia.Infodrom.North.DE>]

Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > > In my new version of the fvwm package (2.2-x), there have been radical
> > > changes.  The postinst will do its best not to irrevocably retrieve
> > > the information it expects to currently be present, but it warns the
> > > installer that certain information may be lost, thus giving them a
> > > chance to rescue it first.  I do not think that this is an
> > > unreasonable query, but better ways of handling it are always welcome.
> > 
> > Please ensure that the user is not bothered if he makes a new installation
> > such as a fresh slink/potato installation but only sees this message
> > when upgrading from a proper older version to the current one.
> 
> Have done.
> 
> > > A more questionable example: "Should I make this the default window
> > > manager?"  We could always do so be default, but since the sysadmin
> > > may have already chosed the default window manager, they may not like
> > > this behaviour.
> > 
> > Something has to be done here.  I'm not sure what.  But being asked
> > everytime I install any wm, that sucks.
> 
> I totally agree.  I too don't know what, though.

I believe that there are three things which need to be done:

  a) Define a way to find out if the admin has installed a default
     window manager.

  b) Before any wm.postinst asks the user about a default wm it has
     to check if there is a default wm already installed.  If it is
     this fact has to be accepted and the user isn't queried again.

  c) There should be a wm-configure script which would be invoked
     by the hooks mechanism if it is implemented or issued by the
     admin otherwise.  I've already shown an example for this script.

If I remember correctly (I haven't bothered with this before) all
window managers place the name of the executable in
/etc/X11/window-managers.  Although there is a prioritized ordering 
in the file there is no easy way to detect the default manager since
the first manager that add itself to the file doesn't need to be the
default.

Now come up with proposals how to detect the default one.  This
must not break the current mechanism.

 . What about a blank line?
 . What about the default being placed before the comments?
 . Maybe re-use /etc/X11/config?

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
Let's call it an accidental feature.  --Larry Wall

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