[KDE-India] a network config wizard for linux

[Vivek Rai]

On 28 Apr 2007, at 23:54, Rajeev J Sebastian wrote:

> Hello Vivek,
>
> On 4/29/07, Vivek Rai <vivek.rai at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > First things first: this has already been done. Check the Pardus
>> > distro for a good one. I believe Suse also does this in Yast  
>> (which is
>> > being ported to Debian-distros in the Yast4debian project). IIRC,
>> > guidance also provides a module for this.
>> >
>> yast4debian  was a great idea and great project. sadly, the status
>> does not look promising.. and has not had much activity in last 2  
>> years?
>>
>> I have seen and tried the pardus network manager, and had interacted
>> with the pardus team just before I started work on this, I have
>> looked at its code too.. trust me, i had no reason to spend many
>> hours on re-inventing the wheel..
>>
>> pardus network manager relies on (and is very tightly coupled with)
>> the comar config daemon, running pardus config network manager on any
>> other distribution requires u to also run comard - not always
>> straightforward..
>
> Comar is very advantageous for any desktop-oriented distro. You
> could've spent your time wisely by porting Comar (which brings with it
> many more interesting tools as well).
i see no point in having simple utility tools tightly coupled with  
other distro specific setup tools. Even if i port comar to distro X,  
my tool (or pardus n/w mgr)  will just work on distro X and its  
derivatives...

thats why i preferred to use the more flexible backend stuff instead  
-  like system-tools-backend (for n/w setup peristance), and hal/dbus  
(dev details lookup).. those were the only things i needed a backend  
for... and this approach makes a tool more easy to port on ANY new  
distro...

(as i said b4), scope of my work was much larger that that of pardus  
n/w mgr...  also, i dont know turkish ...  so i did not try to port  
comar to all major distros...  (btw, pardus team was really helpful,  
and i like their distro).. comar is a good idea, but for this  
particular tool, i did not need a heavyweight backend.

in summary, i have no regrets about how wisely (or foolishly, as u  
seem to allude) i spent my time.. only regret is, i could not devote  
enough time for that last mile effort to package this properly.. and  
to properly finish the associated utilily stuff...

> Alternatively, you could've also
> helped yast4debian aloing.
(as b4), sorry to bring the shattering news to u... yast4debian is  
DEAD! .. it died 2 yrs ago... status was not great..  http:// 
yast4debian.alioth.debian.org/modules-status.html ...

> Of course, I am noone to tell you how best to spend your time.
esp when i have already spent it.. ;-) ..  hey, i hardly have any  
spare time in my new job anyways :( ...

discussion on .. improving what i have created so far...  is always  
welcome..
discussion on .. why i had to do it as a separate project... has  
taken place.. (?)
discussion on .. should i have done it... is a futile exercise at  
this stage..

> My point was very simple, and has nothing to do with specific
> architectures/distros/whatever: there is a great need to do software
> that has no equivalent in the open source world.

exactly, and hence i clearly spelt out the scope of my work,

we need a lightweight, distro-neutral and "single point of  
configuration" wizard like tool for guiding a newbie user through the  
complete network setup for linux.. (device, connection params, tcp/ 
ip.. etc.. as detailed in my prev mail)  ..

cheers,
vivek

p.s. btw, thanks to all of u who have offered to have a look so  
far... meanwhile, the linuxMint distro has shown some interest in  
doing a trial .deb , lets see...