Re: [gentoo-dev] Google SoC @ Gentoo - Universal Select Tool

[Tiziano Müller]

Am Montag, den 04.05.2009, 22:01 +0100 schrieb Sérgio Almeida:
> Gentoo Dev's,
>
> My name is Sérgio Almeida, I am Portuguese and I am a student for this
> year's Google SoC coding the Universal Select Tool project for Gentoo
> being Sébastien Fabbro (bicatali) my mentor.
>
> Abstract:
>
> Universal Select Tool is an utility to manage system configuration.
> This tool is similar to the unmaintained eselect utility of Gentoo or
> Exherbo's eclectic. The idea is to create a tool that  manages both
> system settings and user settings with profile creation possibilities.
> The utility will use mostly concepts from "modules", "softenv", and
> both "eselect" and "eclectic".
>
> My initial proposal does not get in-depth with implementation details
> and I need to make some decisions as soon as possible. Implementation
> language will be python as it is easy to maintain, easy to code and
> faster and more flexible than bash. See attachment for more details.
>
> Besides introducing myself, the purpose of this e-mail is a
> call-to-ideas to all Gentoo developers, mainly all eselect-* and
> *-config developers.
>
> Here are the main interest ideas:
>
> * keep eselect structure of modules - actions
>
> * symlinking, environment and aliases actions can consist of something
> like:
>
>         # module moo comments
>         description "Example Module description"
>         version "Example Module Version"
>         author "moo@××××.moo"
>         # action system moo
>         description "Moo Action Description"
>         symlink "regexp" "regexp"
>         env "regexp" "regexp"
>         alias "regexp" "regexp"
>         # end moo
>
> These should get the job done for most of the modules and opens the door
> to automatic module creation prior to a successful emerge (if some USE
> flag set)
>
> * Actions that consist of code blocks that support any scripting
> language (what about binaries?) to do more complex actions (full module
> example):
>
>     # module moo comments
>         description "Example Module description"
>         version "Example Module Version"
>         author "moo@××××.moo"
>
>         # action user moo
>         description "Example Module will moo for any user"
>         type runnable
>         runner /bin/bash
>         # file moo.bash
>         #!/bin/bash
>         do_moo() {
>         	echo "This is the Example Module mooing"
>         }
>         do_moo()
>         # end moo.bash
>         # end moo
>
> * actions can be run system-wide and per-user:
>         # action user moo
>         # action system moo
>
> * automatic module loading and profile management can be managed by some
> env.d python scripts that are user-aware and follow some database
>
> I've been given this difficult task of unifying all of these tools
> together and as you all can understand, I won't be having the time to
> read through all eselect-* modules and *-config utilities code.
>
> Please drop me a line here or at freenode if you have anything to add to
> these ideas or have any further ideas that can help me on this project.
> Thank you all in advance.

What I'd like to see is the possibility to
... localize messages (will be difficult since modules need translations
as well, but maybe you find a way :)
... encapsulation of methods to set/list/change such that instead of a
CLI- a NCurses- or GUI-Frontend could be developed.

Cheers,
Tiziano



-- 
Tiziano Müller
Gentoo Linux Developer, Council Member
Areas of responsibility:
  Samba, PostgreSQL, CPP, Python, sysadmin, GLEP Editor
E-Mail   : dev-zero@g.o
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