On Sun, May 06, 2001 at 05:16:37PM -0400, Andreas Pour wrote:

> The point is not to unify the tools, but the UI for entering
> information.  Please, let's not create a problem that doesn't exist and
> say this problem can't be solved.  If some distro's tool does not have a
> way I can script my network settings, the tool needs fixing.  If it can
> be scripted, then the UI frontend can use this script.

So here's what I was thinking:

* maybe this should be done in a scripting languge, because these things
should be lightweight.  Ruby anyone?

* maybe instead of an API for reading config files, something simpler
should be done.  why not just have an API for:
	* finding the pid of a process
	(look for /var/run/foo.pid, return the contents in integer form, 
	and allow one to manipulate it).
	* API for finding configuration files
	* checking versions of specific programs
	* MAYBE reading in really simple config files

Other than that, I think the next step would be to make all of these
config programs true kcontrol modules (i.e. kcron -> kcmcron).  Also a
kcminetd would be very useful, and still would be quite easy to remain
very generic.  However such text processing would be great to use perl,
python, ruby, or some scripting language for.  QRegExps are awkward here,
etc, etc.

Also, perhaps one should concentrate on programs that are common to lots
of these distributions, instead of the distribution specific stuff like
the startup scripts.

- alex