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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Not in the face! (Introducing myself)
From:       Juan Luis Baptiste <juan.baptiste () kdemail ! net>
Date:       2006-08-16 15:41:44
Message-ID: 200608161041.45045.juan.baptiste () kdemail ! net
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Hi,

On Wednesday 16 August 2006 04:21, Vivek Rai wrote:
> Yes, I did look at knetworkconf. (and also a lot of other tools).
>
> Doing TCP/DNS setup itself is the easier part, and is already handled
> by many tools (knetworkconf)
>
> The problems faced by newbies is more to get some of the devices
> working. I intend to provide a UI which helps the user with this too.

Instead of writing a new application, why don't you try to help me improve 
knetworkconf with the wizards? I already have them in my TODO list so I was 
going to do them anyway (when? not sure) ;) you would save a lot of time and 
effort as you would only have to write the GUI of the wizards as the storing 
of the network settings is ready to be used. Also KDE won't end up with two 
tools to do the same thing.  knetworkconf currently doesn't handle hardware 
detection and configuration and won't do it directly, there's the Solid 
project [1] that is currently working on it [2], so probably I'll use that 
feature to make knetworkconf capable of hardware configuration.

[1] http://solid.kde.org
[2] http://solid.kde.org/cms/1002

> E.g. I am in touch with the linmodems team, and I have put in a lot of
> effort trying to create a hardware "database" of
> 1) wireless adapters
> 2) internal modems
> 3) USB/PCI DSL adapters.
>

Have talked with the Solid team to know if they have in their plans to support 
these king of hardware? if not maybe the best place for your database would 
be there, or with the system-tools-backend [3] (which is what knetworkconf 
uses to configure the network) .

[3] http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/system-tools-backends/system-tools-backends/

> It also intends to store Provider specific settings required for DSL
> and wvdial (like we have for dialup via kppp)
>

Why wvdial and not kppp? I haven't used the first one so I'm assuming both do 
the same thing so I would think there's no need to support for another ppp 
tool. The network backend of system-tools-backends has some support for ppp 
devices but I'm not sure what it does it, I didn't implemented it in 
knetworkconf as there's kppp for that task. I can have a look at it if you 
want, maybe it does some of the things you need.

>
> > Unfortunately this is the one
> > aspect of GNU/Linux which is very fragmented. Also, if you want far
> > distribution on other UNIX-like OS' you need to abstract away the other
> > ways of doing networking on them too..... You get the point. :)
>
> I totally share your concerns about fragmentation. The design I am
> trying to implement for the netConfWizard is also "plugin based".
>
> The inputs acquired or derived by the wizard will be first held in a
> properties file for each profile in a format native to the wizard
> itself. We could then have distribution specific "plugins" to apply
> these to underlying networking files, which could differ from one
> distribution to another.
>
> So it already aims to be "Distribution neutral"

The problem with this approach is that while you implement (again) the support 
for each of the existing platforms and you save/restore the network 
configuration settings, your settings can be overwritten by any other tool 
the user runs, like drakconnect in Mandriva , the changes the user made with 
that tool won't be reflected in your application or viceversa. This can be 
very confusing for a new user. 
Also writing those plugins can be a LOT of work, believe me, been there, done 
that, didn't like it so that's why I chose to use system-tools-backends ;)

>
> Keeping it as a standalone application outside the KDE control centre
> will also make it desktop neutral, it can be run as an app even in a
> gnome environment. (thats the long term plan, anyways.. and it is a
> long way to go)
>

Are you aware that you can run ANY kcontrol module as a standalone 
application? you can use the program kcmshell for that (ie. kcmshell 
kcm_knetworkconfmodule) and run it in any desktop you want.

Cheers,
-- 
Juan Luis Baptiste
http://knetworkconf.sf.net
http://www.merlinux.org
 
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