[Kde-hardware-devel] GSoC Proposal : S.M.A.R.T HDD health and ISO file / optical disk management

[Alex Fiestas]

This kind of Disk operationsa are not material for SystemSettings, be aware 
that System Settings IS NOT like the "Windows control panel", the main 
difference is that ours is ONLY for preferences while Windows CP is for system 
management as well.

Said that, I don't think these Disk operations should be done in system 
preference but instead in a separate application.

On Monday, March 19, 2012 02:59:24 AM Anant Kamath wrote:
> Components:
> 1)A System settings /KCM module for configuring the scheduling of SMART
> tests, and to configure the medium and frequency of notifications.
> For example some users would prefer an pop up notification with a link to
> test results everytime a test was run.. some would want a notification only
> when impending failure was detected. Also some would wish for email
> notifications additionally.
>
> 2)A system settings module to present a GUI for viewing the health status &
> individual attributes, running short/long tests and exporting the data to
> file. This would also integrate the 1st module to enable configuration of
> scheduling and notifications.
> This would be launchable as a separate application, and also be made a part
> of kinfocenter to augment the hard-drive information in the 'Device
> Information' section.

I'm not an expert but, do we really want to be ablet o schedule tests? this 
sounds to me like something only the 0,1% of our users are going to use so I'm 
not sure it is worth effort. Maybe we can do this after GSoC writting a small 
application dedicated to SMART with plenty of advanced stuff.

We need a way the user can perform tests but I'm not sure if making this 
automatically makes sense, apart that a afaik a Disk test takes some time and 
resoruces.

> 
> 3)A small, streamlined application for burning ISOs and copying disks,
> which would show advanced options only when requested explicitly.
> 
> 4)Context menus entries in dolphin for ISO files to enable burning ISOs and
> copying  disks as defined in the use cases above
> 
> 5)A small application to mount/unmount ISOs. ISOs will be mountable easily
> with a single click in dolphin. Additionaly when ISOs are mounted, an icon
> would appear in dolphin for the mounted ISO along with the other storage
> devices listed, which would behave as it were a shortcut / icon for a
> regular optical disk.
> The right click menu for this icon/device would have an option to unmount.
> Additionaly if enabled by the user, a system-tray icon with a menu to mount
> ISOs via a file dialog and to list mounted ISOs (which can be unmounted)
> will be shown.
> 
> 6)If time permits a plasma data-engine and a plasmoid to expose a subset of
> data like hard disk temperature, and a simple health indicator.
> 
This sounds perfect.

> Actual nitty-gritties of implementation (still to be worked out completely):
> 
> In addition to what I've put in my original post in this thread.. :
> I've discovered that Udisks itself implements SMART features by using
> libatasmart.. So perhaps the issue of Udisks / Udisks 2 can be sidestepped
> by using libatasmart directly?
Do we have any guarantee that libatasmart API won't change? I don't care on 
using udisk/udisk2 but I want we to abstract it in a way that we only have to 
care about creating a new backend in case that udisk2 changes its api (I'm 
sure we will see udisk3 someday).

> Scheduling + possibly email notification can be made possible by using
> smartd.
If such thing like smartd exists I insist, what we should do is after the GSoC 
create an interface for smartd, but again I'm not sure this makes sense since 
advanced users will be able to use the command line for configuring it.

> Also for the ISO part, while going through libk3b's README, I came across
> this:
>     "If you want to use it please be aware that the API is far from stable"
Heh... we will have to talk with k3b team then.