I have one idea - its about to union ability of YAST System Update and drpmsync, so System Update can do update using drpmsync mirrors. In that case, Yast System Update do not need to download the whole rpm-package of package A ver. 0.1 to update it to 0.2.1. It only need to download the delta of that rpms and apply it. It will decrease bandwidth for all, and decrease cost of update for some users. As i know, realizing that feature require the modification of the client subsystem and a server-side infrastructure.

You mean like the delta RPMs we use for online update in 9.3 and 10.0 already? Ciao, Marcus

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, SunSunich wrote:

...

...

I have one idea - its about to union ability of YAST System Update and drpmsync, so System Update can do update using drpmsync mirrors. In that case, Yast System Update do not need to download the whole rpm-package of package A ver. 0.1 to update it to 0.2.1. It only need to download the delta of that rpms and apply it. It will decrease bandwidth for all, and decrease cost of update for some users. As i know, realizing that feature require the modification of the client subsystem and a server-side infrastructure.

You mean like the delta RPMs we use for online update in 9.3 and 10.0 already?

Yes, like that, but for whole system update. Actualy i forgot that such feature already used for online update. May be it will be not so hard to mirror that feature on System Update.

I like that idea very much -- but it might not be as easy as it seems in the first place ;) Regards Christoph

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Michael Schroeder wrote:

On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 10:27:40AM +0200, Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, SunSunich wrote:

...

Yes, like that, but for whole system update. Actualy i forgot that such feature already used for online update. May be it will be not so hard to mirror that feature on System Update.

I like that idea very much -- but it might not be as easy as it seems in the first place ;)

Actually we already talked about this a couple of months ago. I think it can be implemented by having a transport mechanism "drpmsync" next to "nfs", "ftp" and the like. I don't think it would be so hard to implement.

Actually, I'd like to see "drpmsync over rsync", "drpmsync over ftp" or "drpmsync over http", in order to spur the distribution of drpmsync in general ;) Regards Christoph

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006, SunSunich wrote:

...

...

...

...

Yes, like that, but for whole system update. Actualy i forgot that such feature already used for online update. May be it will be not so hard to mirror that feature on System Update.

I like that idea very much -- but it might not be as easy as it seems in the first place ;)

Actually we already talked about this a couple of months ago. I think it can be implemented by having a transport mechanism "drpmsync" next to "nfs", "ftp" and the like. I don't think it would be so hard to implement.

Actually, I'd like to see "drpmsync over rsync", "drpmsync over ftp" or "drpmsync over http", in order to spur the distribution of drpmsync in general ;)

Is it just a plan for future? Or it will be discussed in the "smart" branch? Could it be a project idea for SoC? I don't have a student status, but a friend of mine has, we could implement that feature for Yast System Update. All we need is a maintainer.

It could be turned into a SoC project -- I'll add it to the page soon, amongst the other stuff that has been suggested. Regards Christoph

Ciaran Farrell wrote:

I'm not sure how easy or difficult this is, but how about a YaST module (either a new one, or integrated into firewall etc) to help people (parents, schools etc) set up child filters for internet browsing and e-mail. I'm told that this currently involves quite a bit of fooling around with squid-proxy and postfix, which makes it (and consequently SUSE) unattractive for at least one market segment

being a teacher, I have a look at such systems for a long time now and what I can say is childs laugh at that. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Ciaran Farrell wrote:

I'm sure some children may laugh at the implementation of such features, but it is also worthwhile to look at the necessity of such features as a whole.

I have seen many systems built to forgive access to given sites. I have seen none run as it should. usually this is like anti-piracy measures, this give problems only to honest people. On my school many sites are filtered (I don't know how) and this gives me problem more than it should, forgiving the access to usefull sites, when as soon as I turn back I see porn screens on my students computers. usually yougers childs don"t care about such sites (they simply don't understand) and others know how to get around. don't forget there are friends, not so well hiden parents code and so on. I remember the content of a "math" VHS tape my son forget in the VHS reader :-((

The concept of keeping the Internet safe for children and thus integrating the Internet into the learning experience for children is certainly important. It is almost certainly _more_ important for teachers and parents and indeed anyone trusted with the guidance and upbringing of children to invest time in actually helping these children understand the dangers of the Internet, rather than simply sheltering them from such dangers.

absolutely true On the other

hand, I am fairly sure that no school network administrator would argue that subjective technical ability to disable filters is an argument for not implementing the filters in the first place.

false security is worst than no security at all. understand me: it should be a good thing if children could be protected, but protection against TV infos should me better than from the net. the greated danger is on the road between the house and the school :-(( I'm not opposed to a yast children safety module if it proves it works... (Linux in itself is good as protecting children) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Hi, Oliver Tennert schrieb:

SUSE surely needs some things, which are substantial, but no snake oil like Parental Filter for WWW.

While I fully agree with you that there can't be any effective filter (except total disconnect), people still want to spend money on such a filter. If you explain why it is snake oil and people still want to buy it, why not give them what they want? There are many people out there who will pay you to be able to keep their illusions. Sad but true. Regards, Carl-Daniel -- http://www.hailfinger.org/

Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Ciaran Farrell wrote:

...

...

...

openSUSE has just been accepted at Google Summer of Code 2006! ... ... I'm not sure how easy or difficult this is, but how about a YaST module (either a new one, or integrated into firewall etc) to help people (parents, schools etc) set up child filters for internet browsing and e-mail. I'm told that this currently involves quite a bit of fooling around with squid-proxy and postfix, which makes it (and consequently SUSE) unattractive for at least one market segment

That seems to make a lot of sense to me. I'll add it to http://en.opensuse.org/Summer_of_Code_2006

Yep, interesting idea. Wouldn't be that difficult to implement actually, it would be a configuration frontend for blocking rules in Squid (+ possibly transparent proxy configuration through SuSEfirewall2 to enforce HTTP requests to go through Squid). + implement a protocol and a sample implementation of a website blacklisting system (similar to Razor for spam or DenyHosts for SSH) through a central website or even a P2P architecture

For that matter, I'd love to see a YaST module for configuring SUSE Linux to act as a terminal server (like LTSP, e.g.).

Good idea as well ;) -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

Am Freitag, 28. April 2006 13:47 schrieb Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett:

Here the challenge is:

- to group them by category - to apply them in the right place. For exaple p2p blacklists are text files and should be applied to the firewall, while spam blacklists are dns based and should be added to postfix.

Perhap a simple architecture could be designed to update the avilable known blacklists. But in any case I think we should implement a new blacklist architecture for the internet.

Edubuntu is aimed at schools etc. Does anyone know if they have a feature like this? Apropos those who think the idea of a child filter is not worth spending any effort on, since this morning I was in contact with two school directors about installing SUSE on school networks. With one, the very first question was about keeping the Internet safe in school - with the other it was the third question. While the idea of 'censoring' might seem absurd to developers, schools take this very seriously and I am sure parents do too. I've seen how some schools see how filters don't always work and instead the implement whitelists. Duncan is right - there is no need to re-invent the wheel, but rather create a frontend to give parents and schools the _choice_ to implement the features. Ciaran

On Friday 28 April 2006 14:26, houghi wrote:

Either take you resposability, or whitelist.

You are reducing the topic to adult content, which is only part of the topic. There is also spam, viruses, ads, pishing, etc. Duncan

On Friday 28 April 2006 14:38, jdd wrote:

spam and children protection are two completely different things.

Both fall in the category "what I want in my computer" from the net or not, Anyway, both can use those available blacklists, and the proposed yast logic to apply those list. If they are in 2 different wizards, thats a UI matter. Duncan

Ciaran Farrell wrote:

Am Freitag, 28. April 2006 14:38 schrieb jdd:

...

spam and children protection are two completely different things.

I don't know about that. If you saw some of the spam I get, then I'm sure you'd agree, a child should be protected from it. Or would you like your child to give your bank details to a nigerian bank manager who badly needs these details to transfer the million dollars left to you by your long lost cousin?

does your child have an e-mail or messenger? if yes, you are stuck. and he receive mail on a server (hotmail), so you can do nothing. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 01:47:37PM +0200, Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett wrote:

Perhap a simple architecture could be designed to update the avilable known blacklists. But in any case I think we should implement a new blacklist architecture for the internet.

If there is such a list, just use it as an add on to the proxy server. That said, blacklisting won't work. If you want to protect your children from seeing things you do not want them to see there is only one thing: Guidence. Well, another way of babysitting through technolagy and avoiding your resposability is tio use whitelisting. I see these lists like firewalls. A bad firewall closes everything that is not allowed in. A good firewall opens everything that is allowed in. houghi -- Nutze die Zeit. Sie ist das Kostbarste, was wir haben, denn es ist unwiederbringliche Lebenszeit. Leben ist aber mehr als Werk und Arbeit, und das Sein wichtiger als das Tun - Johannes Müller-Elmau

I'd really like to see something like a YaST module that provides a graphical way to work with LVM2 and evms (better that evmsgui). -- Cheers, Trey ---- In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Linux laptop 2.6.16-8-smp i686 GNU/Linux 10:42pm up 2 days 3:49, 7 users, load average: 0.46, 0.57, 0.55

Hartmut Meyer wrote:

Hi,

On Saturday 29 April 2006 04:44, Trey Sizemore wrote:

...

I'd really like to see something like a YaST module that provides a graphical way to work with LVM2 and evms (better that evmsgui).

What is missing in the existing (expert) partitioning dialogue of YaST2?

a lot of things :-) the expert dialogue is to be rethought. I erased a drive with it (happily vmware unimportant one). not that it lacks something but it's not always clear what it does. more on this if necessary jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/galerie_photo_web/expo/index.html http://lucien.dodin.net http://fr.susewiki.org/index.php?title=Gérer_ses_photos

Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Ciaran Farrell wrote:

...

...

...

openSUSE has just been accepted at Google Summer of Code 2006! ... We are now looking for ideas, proposals, projects, etc. around openSUSE and SUSE Linux, that could be worked on in Google Summer of Code. As the period of application for SoC is already very short, we need to get our proposals for project online May 1st, 2006, at the latest.

So, for example, if you are missing a certain YaST module, or a special feature in the distribution, speak up now!

Our proposals will be publish on http://en.opensuse.org/SoC2006 shortly. I'm not sure how easy or difficult this is, but how about a YaST module (either a new one, or integrated into firewall etc) to help people (parents, schools etc) set up child filters for internet browsing and e-mail. I'm told that this currently involves quite a bit of fooling around with squid-proxy and postfix, which makes it (and consequently SUSE) unattractive for at least one market segment

That seems to make a lot of sense to me. I'll add it to http://en.opensuse.org/Summer_of_Code_2006

For that matter, I'd love to see a YaST module for configuring SUSE Linux to act as a terminal server (like LTSP, e.g.).

Regards Christoph

Me too Christoph. Because that is software project. Protecting kinds from Internet danger is project for parents that are sitting next to them and telling this is good, this is bad. Yet another filter would not help, as present options are not used. Whoever is talking about them hasn't tried to think what that filters should do and how to explain to machine (program) what is appropriate. Filters should protect kids from exactly what? Who will define what is appropriate? If you ask a whole city for an opinion than you can set all as forbidden, except phone book, and that after all inappropriate names are removed. Idea to make filter that will replace mom, dad and teacher is pointless, because nobody knows what they would like to be allowed and what not. Now we can change idea of universal filter to mom/dad configurable. I would like to see parents in action :-) Right now you have bunch of applications that allow email and web sites filtering, and how many people use that funcianality? If parents and teacher have no time to sit next to the kids, when they going to find time to learn how to use and program filters. Even if there are some of them ready to do that, what would be the point, to make parents busy with computer instead of kids. The Internet is today very similar to normal life. It is easy to get out of the home and walk in the forest. The hard part is when you meet a hungry wolf how to get rid of him. Now, who's responsibility is keeping kids far from a forest until they would be able to defend themselves? Parents or some company that makes software. If you are responsible parent would you let some software company to tell your kids what they can look? The problem is not the software, but Internet content, and expert for software is not automatically expert for content. Mom and dad are experts for that. -- Regards, Rajko.

Hi, On Friday 28 April 2006 10:43, Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

openSUSE has just been accepted at Google Summer of Code 2006!

...

...

We are now looking for ideas, proposals, projects, etc. around openSUSE and SUSE Linux, that could be worked on in Google Summer of Code. As the period of application for SoC is already very short, we need to get our proposals for project online May 1st, 2006, at the latest.

So, for example, if you are missing a certain YaST module, or a special feature in the distribution, speak up now!

I know quite some people are using the SMART Package Manager these days: So, I'm going to propose some extensions to SMART to handle the new rpm-md+ based update channels for SUSE Linux, including deltarpm support, etc. Maybe a QT GUI for SMART would be a nice feature as well, eh?

Why not a YaST2 integration (module)? Greetings from Stuhr hartmut -- Hartmut Meyer, NTS EMEA Partner Relationship Manager SUSE LINUX GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg T: +49 421 3064385 - M: +49 179 2279480 F: +49 421 3064387 - hartmut.meyer@novell.com ---------------------------------------------------- http://www.novell.com/open

Hi, On Friday 28 April 2006 12:22, Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, Hartmut Meyer wrote:

...

...

I know quite some people are using the SMART Package Manager these days: So, I'm going to propose some extensions to SMART to handle the new rpm-md+ based update channels for SUSE Linux, including deltarpm support, etc. Maybe a QT GUI for SMART would be a nice feature as well, eh?

Why not a YaST2 integration (module)?

I.e. a YaST2 module that uses smart as a backend?

Yes. Or does this already exist? Greetings from Stuhr hartmut -- Hartmut Meyer, NTS EMEA Partner Relationship Manager SUSE LINUX GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuernberg T: +49 421 3064385 - M: +49 179 2279480 F: +49 421 3064387 - hartmut.meyer@novell.com ---------------------------------------------------- http://www.novell.com/open

Christoph Thiel wrote:

On Thu, 27 Apr 2006, Christoph Thiel wrote:

...

openSUSE has just been accepted at Google Summer of Code 2006! ... We are now looking for ideas, proposals, projects, etc. around openSUSE and SUSE Linux, that could be worked on in Google Summer of Code. As the period of application for SoC is already very short, we need to get our proposals for project online May 1st, 2006, at the latest.

So, for example, if you are missing a certain YaST module, or a special feature in the distribution, speak up now!

I know quite some people are using the SMART Package Manager these days: So, I'm going to propose some extensions to SMART to handle the new rpm-md+ based update channels for SUSE Linux, including deltarpm support, etc. Maybe a QT GUI for SMART would be a nice feature as well, eh? Is there anything else that you are missing in SMART that could be addressed by a SoC project?

I was about to mention that ;) Maybe a YaST2 module frontend for Smart ? i.e. "Software Management (that works)" ? ;P Smart is 100% Python and well written, I think it should be an attractive project. What about a "software central" application like I mentioned once, in Python, based on the Smart engine ? A single view that would display - new security updates - new packages from configured channels (including 3rd party, of course) - updates to installed packages - single-click installation/upgrade - possibly even downgrading to older versions from the UI The Smart engine could be used as an operating core for that, as it already provides all the operations for managing channels, refreshing channels, getting potential upgrades, and of course performing installation/removal/upgrade of packages with an excellent dependency resolver. Goals/tasks: 1) coding the UI (either PyGTK or PyQT, or even both.. or... hmm.. a web interface ? (there are embeddable lightweight webservers for Python), a YaST2 module ? a Jabber bot ? ;) 2) adding some stuff to Smart itself, i.e. some history management (e.g. for new packages that have shown up after each channel update: smart reports that data when you do "smart update" (= re-fetches and updates the repository metadata, it does *not* perform a package upgrade) but doesn't keep history of that information) 3) possibly enhancing rpm-md with even more metadata, e.g. such as - links to screenshots that would be embedded in the view (à la http://kde-apps.org), - quality/stability labels (whether a given release of a package is "stable", "testing" or "experimental", or something similar) and giving the end-user the choice to install/upgrade to the latest stable or to the latest bleeding-edge version of a package (and do that per package or package sets), e.g. I want the latest stable KDE version but I want the latest bleeding-edge version of GIMP ... endless possibilities (such as push-based package management for remote nodes) ;) The advantages of smart: - pure Python - already supports a large number of repository formats - doesn't rely on any dependencies except Python (obviously), and rpm-python for RPM-based distributions - already supports mirrors - has the best dependency resolver of all package management frontends - is biarch-capable - works on RPM and Debian/dpkg based distributions (even seems that Ubuntu will switch to smart) - the code is pretty clean and well-structured (definitely when comparing to yum or rpm) - the maintainer (Gustavo Niemeyer) is very experienced (he was the maintainer of apt-rpm and implemented a lot of synaptic) and very friendly As far as business value is concerned and in case you wondered "why should Novell support the development of a cross-distribution killer application like this that would be better than YaST2", I think that the added value of YaST2 is not in the package manager, but in the other configuration modules and in the installer. cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v FOSDEM 2006 -- 25+26 February 2006 in Brussels

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, James Ogley wrote:

...

How about a YaST-module for configuring/setting up Xgl?

That would seem to make more sense integrated into SaX2 rather than YaST...

Well, it' actually there already -- have you guys tried "gnome-xgl-settings" from the latests compiz package? I just found it by accident while preparing my laptop for LinuxTag and I have to admit, I liked it a lot! Regards Christoph

Ooh, I just thought of one. Actually, I didn't so much think of it now as a while ago in my blog[1]. Is it too late to suggest ideas? A GTK+ frontend to YaST would be very cool. [1] http://rubberturnip.org.uk/index.cgi/2006/04/22#20060422 -- James Ogley james@usr-local-bin.org http://usr-local-bin.org Packages for SUSE: http://usr-local-bin.org/rpms Help end poverty: http://oxfam.org.uk/imin