June 2009 - openSUSE Features - openSUSE Mailing Lists

[openFATE 302306] Reorganization of YaST control center
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 17 Jun '09

17 Jun '09

Feature changed by: jimbo bigcreed (Dimble_ThriceFoon) Feature #302306, revision 60 Title: Reorganization of YaST control center openSUSE-10.3: Rejected by Stanislav Visnovsky (visnov) reject date: 2007-07-03 17:08:02 reject reason: Postponing, we are running out of time. Priority Requester: Mandatory openSUSE-11.0: Rejected by Stanislav Visnovsky (visnov) reject date: 2008-04-25 15:09:31 reject reason: Needs more discussion. Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Important openSUSE-11.1: Rejected by Federico Lucifredi (flucifredi) reject date: 2008-07-18 18:56:09 reject reason: postponing as per engineering's request. Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Important openSUSE-11.2: Evaluation Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Important Requested by: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) Description: As many users (even the experienced ones) find the current organization of YaST modules confusing a reorganization is needed. We have conducted a usability study where experienced users sorted the YaST modules. So I would really ask to take advantage of these data. You find the data and some thoughts about a possible re-categorization on: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Control_Center_-_Card_Sort_Study The reorganization would affect the sorting and presentation, some labeling issues, the use of a consistent icon set, the use of tool tips and an enhancment of search One possible solution would be to organize it similar to the GNOME configuration center: I already heard that it might be mandatory to present AppArmor as an extra section (which in my opinion would be not advisable from a usability perspective, but if it is mandatory, then we have to add it as an extra section). I also thought that some YaST modules (e.g. keyboard, mouse, DNS, Hostname) are doublicated but it turned out, that this makes sense for SLES. Still I suggest combining the modules "user management" and "group management" into a single module called "User and Group Management". This makes sense because opening "user management" and "group management" opens the same module but only show a different view. Documentation Impact: This would require a lot of changes throughout the manuals. Discussion: #1: Tanja Roth (ta-ro) (2007-05-30 14:33:36) Would a reorganization apply to both KDE and GNOME desktop, then? Whatever a new YaST structure would look like, from a doc perspective it would be important that YaST structure and appearance are in sync for both desktops as we strive to use a "common doc base" for both desktops whereever possible to reduce efforts and costs. As reorganization of YaST would require many changes throughout our manuals, we cannot afford to additionally maintain different "flavors" of YaST chapters for KDE/GNOME. Apart from that, consistent structure and appearance of YaST in both desktops would also be a benefit for users. #2: Stanislav Visnovsky (visnov) (2007-06-12 11:40:45) Sigi, is the card study finished now? Where can we find the results? #3: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) (2007-06-12 13:58:58) > Would a reorganization apply to both KDE and GNOME desktop, then? Yes. Exactly for the reasons you named, Tanja :-) By the way, a reorganization of YaST control center already took place in SLES 10 SP1. This solution is similar to what Sigi and I suggested. Perhaps it would be a good idea to take the YaST control center as it is in SLES 10 SP1, improve it a little and implement its design into all our products. What do you think about that? #4: Stanislav Visnovsky (visnov) (2007-06-12 14:00:46) (reply to #3) There was no reorganization for SLE10 SP1. The only change was introduction of slab-based GNOME control center for YaST. The categorization, description and module lists did not change and are shared between KDE and GNOME control centers. #5: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) (2007-06-12 18:01:19) I am sorry for a missunderstanding. I meant that we should take the current "GNOME control centre" - like design of the YaST control centre in SLES 10 SP 1 as a base for a redesign of the YaST control centre in our other products. Additionally to that, we should discuss (and perform) a reorganization of modules. #7: Federico Lucifredi (flucifredi) (2007-06-29 17:59:43) (reply to #5) This is worth pursuing, I am no UX expert, but if we can make it easier for users to find things, we should. A reorganization should be well thought-out, so that we break the existing habits *only once*, we should not be reshuffling things too often. #8: Siegfried Olschner (sdolschn) (2007-07-03 12:35:30) The results of the the cardsort study are available at: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Control_Center_-_Card_Sort_Study The subjects (N=~30) have been "Experts", so you can transfer the results to a new openSUSE YaST Control Center. The cluster trees with 2 different statistical options show only one difference: - ISDN, Modem, DSL, Network => Hardware - ISDN, Modem, DSL, Network => Network see http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Control_Center_-_Card_Sort_Study#Illustrative_M… I'm just writing a sumary. This section is placed at the top of the page. #9: Siegfried Olschner (sdolschn) (2007-07-03 12:39:23) I got only 2-3 NOT-Expert users in the sample. Their results are not presented on the page. But it's clear, they separated out cards like: VLM, iSCSI Initiator, Powertweak, VNC, Sudo, AppArmor, LDAP, etc., etc. #10: Siegfried Olschner (sdolschn) (2007-07-06 10:05:23) Some mockups available at: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Control_Center_-_Card_Sort_Study#Sorting_and_pr… #11: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) (2007-11-29 13:50:55) Some additional mock ups and thoughs about that topic are available at: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Development/New_Control_Center #13: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) (2008-02-11 15:24:24) One other suggestion was influenced by the KDE 4 control center: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Development/New_Control_Center/YaST_KDEstyle The main concerns with these mock ups are: * information overload * "search" is somehow meaningless if it isn't provided by some kind of thesaurus #15: Berthold Gunreben (azouhr) (2008-04-09 12:52:12) I don't know if this is just too late, but for me the only design that looks like a real step forward from all the designs on http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Development/New_Control_Center/ is http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Development/New_Control_Center/YaST_System_Navi… I really like this approach. Please don't just create huge lists of modules, or preselected lists of modules that never can meet the customers needs. #16: Duncan Mac-Vicar (dmacvicar) (2008-04-24 14:56:14) This feature was on impl. But limited resources and refocus on PackageKit froze development. Passing back to Stano. #17: Federico Lucifredi (flucifredi) (2008-06-13 19:49:56) lets figure out a plan and get it done this time :) #20: Martin Schmidkunz (mschmidkunz) (2007-09-29 03:17:48) As there is some negative feedback from the KDE 4 personal settings menu (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=431432) maybe we should take it into account when talking about a YaST control center redesign. BTW: what is the status on this feature request? #21: Thomas Göttlicher (tgoettlicher) (2008-10-23 17:03:56) (reply to #20) Thanks for this hint. Development on this featrue is postponed. #22: evamaria fuchs (nefuchs) (2009-01-22 17:49:48) Currently we are conducting usability tests, see: http://en.opensuse.org/YaST/Development/New_Control_Center#Usability_Tests #24: Karl Eichwalder (keichwa) (2009-05-08 07:37:16) For what's worth, things got worse in the meantime ;) This feature needs to be split into 2 or 3 subfeatures: * Improve labels (e.g., "/etc/sysconfig Editor" -> "Sysconfig Editor"). * Reorganize groups: Move items from "Other" to Miscellaneous, split Network Services into Network Servers and Network Clients, make the Apparmor entries one entry and move it to Security, make Virtualization entries one entry and move it to System, move Hostnames from Network Services to Network Devices and rename Network Devices to "Network Devices and Hostnames". * Improve the UI. The Gnome CC is rahter pointless because its left navigation (?) is just superfluous (ok, there is now "Common Tasks"...). Because YaST contains more groups and especially entries, we need a way to hide or collapse groups completely. (I do not like the KDE idea just to display a subset of the entries of a group.) BTW, the worst thing about yast's gtk ui is the idea of sorting groups alphabetically. In English, happily "Hardware" comes before "Miscellaneous"... #25: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-06-04 16:24:54) the split between kcontrol and yast is confusing #26: Rémy Marquis (spyhawk) (2009-06-05 02:22:02) (reply to #25) This issue has already been discussed here : http://duncan.mac-vicar.com/blog/archives/452 + #27: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-06-17 16:10:31) (reply to + #26) + cheers for the info. + + as long as they provide a non-confusing synthesis of the two related + system management functions in a native QT4.5 environment i will be + happy. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/302306

1 0

[openFATE 304879] OOo: Update of KDE integration to KDE4
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 16 Jun '09

16 Jun '09

Feature changed by: jimbo bigcreed (Dimble_ThriceFoon) Feature #304879, revision 76 Title: OOo: Update of KDE integration to KDE4 openSUSE-11.1: Rejected by JP Rosevear (jproseve) reject date: 2008-08-15 11:47:35 reject reason: As per PM recommendation. Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Important openSUSE-11.2: Evaluation Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Mandatory Requested by: Stephan Binner (beineri) Description: The current OOo KDE integration (file dialogs, addressbook, interface/icon theme,...) is based on KDE3. As openSUSE 11.1/SLED 11 will likely not include KDE3 anymore it has to be upgraded to KDE4. Discussion: #1: Stephan Kulow (coolo) (2008-06-13 09:54:23) There are far too many mandatory OOo features. Please reevaluate - it's unlikely that we won't ship KDE3 apps in SLED11 #2: Dirk Mueller (dirkmueller) (2008-06-13 13:25:48) (reply to #1) we will ship KDE3 libs, yes. that doesn't mean that we desire to have KDE3 app dependencies ;) #7: Rajesh Ganesan (ganesanrajesh) (2009-01-07 03:20:08) Well, an excellent idea and most expected too. But (http://kde.openoffice.org/) seems struck at March 2006 itself. Any plans(or chance) of revival? #8: Armin Moradi (amoradi) (2009-01-19 19:30:45) Excellent idea, again, this brings up the consistency issue with the rest of KDE4. #9: Ruurd Pels (rfpels) (2009-03-06 22:40:10) Seems to me now that we have 4.2 in FACTORY for 11.1 we can create and release an integration package there so we will be ready by the time SLES11 goes gold. #10: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-06-04 16:26:13) this would be nice for 11.2 #11: Karsten König (remur) (2009-06-15 15:23:55) Good news everybody! http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/blog/archives/monthly/2009-06.html#2… (Just for tracking, most openfate users propably have seen this by now on planetsuse) + #12: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-06-16 18:41:27) (reply to + #11) + dot.kde + http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3983 + + KDE4 integration done by the kubuntu boys -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/304879

1 0

[openFATE 306523] slptool needs commands for seeing local SLP status
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 16 Jun '09

16 Jun '09

Feature added by: Glen Davis (gldavis) Feature #306523, revision 1 Title: slptool needs commands for seeing local SLP status Requested by: Glen Davis (gldavis) Description: Marcel Cox who monitors the OES forums, has some complaints on openslp. It is difficult to get the slp status information on OES Linux, but it was easy on NetWare. We need some more commands to make slp administration easier, rather than having to set a bunch of debug options to see the local state. - From Marcel Cox "NetWare gives you a lot of console commands to verify the current state andhealth of SLP. On OES2, you just have a simple SLP lookup tool, but no tool toactually see the “state” of the server itself. You would have to enable debuggingin the SLP configuration and then look at the log files to see any other type ofinformation." -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306523

1 0

[openFATE 306521] Browse for Tree during Install
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 16 Jun '09

16 Jun '09

Feature added by: Glen Davis (gldavis) Feature #306521, revision 1 Title: Browse for Tree during Install Requested by: Glen Davis (gldavis) Description: Users would like to browse for their tree when installing OES. Currently the user cannot browse, but has to manually enter the exact tree-name. This feature was in NetWare and is lacking in OES Linux and is a complaint of some customers. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306521

1 0

[openFATE 304879] OOo: Update of KDE integration to KDE4
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 15 Jun '09

15 Jun '09

Feature changed by: Karsten König (remur) Feature #304879, revision 74 Title: OOo: Update of KDE integration to KDE4 openSUSE-11.1: Rejected by JP Rosevear (jproseve) reject date: 2008-08-15 11:47:35 reject reason: As per PM recommendation. Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Important openSUSE-11.2: Evaluation Priority Requester: Mandatory Projectmanager: Mandatory Requested by: Stephan Binner (beineri) Description: The current OOo KDE integration (file dialogs, addressbook, interface/icon theme,...) is based on KDE3. As openSUSE 11.1/SLED 11 will likely not include KDE3 anymore it has to be upgraded to KDE4. Discussion: #1: Stephan Kulow (coolo) (2008-06-13 09:54:23) There are far too many mandatory OOo features. Please reevaluate - it's unlikely that we won't ship KDE3 apps in SLED11 #2: Dirk Mueller (dirkmueller) (2008-06-13 13:25:48) (reply to #1) we will ship KDE3 libs, yes. that doesn't mean that we desire to have KDE3 app dependencies ;) #7: Rajesh Ganesan (ganesanrajesh) (2009-01-07 03:20:08) Well, an excellent idea and most expected too. But (http://kde.openoffice.org/) seems struck at March 2006 itself. Any plans(or chance) of revival? #8: Armin Moradi (amoradi) (2009-01-19 19:30:45) Excellent idea, again, this brings up the consistency issue with the rest of KDE4. #9: Ruurd Pels (rfpels) (2009-03-06 22:40:10) Seems to me now that we have 4.2 in FACTORY for 11.1 we can create and release an integration package there so we will be ready by the time SLES11 goes gold. #10: jimbo bigcreed (dimble_thricefoon) (2009-06-04 16:26:13) this would be nice for 11.2 + #11: Karsten König (remur) (2009-06-15 15:23:55) + Good news everybody! + http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~kendy/blog/archives/monthly/2009-06.html#2… + (Just for tracking, most openfate users propably have seen this by now on + planetsuse) -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/304879

1 0

[openFATE 306338] Package duplication check on create
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 15 Jun '09

15 Jun '09

Feature added by: Will Stephenson (wstephenson) Feature #306338, revision 1, last change by Title: Package duplication check on create Buildservice: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Will Stephenson (wstephenson) Description: Have a check stage when creating a new package so that "The following 523 amarok packages already exist in the Build Service. Would you like to link one of them instead?" ... ... [ Link selected ] [ Create new ] " is shown. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306338

1 2

[openFATE 306411] Configuration files merge
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 15 Jun '09

15 Jun '09

Feature changed by: Michael Andres (mlandres) Feature #306411, revision 12 Title: Configuration files merge openSUSE-11.2: Evaluation Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Michal Hrusecky (-miska-) Description: If we want to make our distribution friendly even to advanced users, I think that we shouldn't touch users configuration files. Luckily this isn't problem as in spec file Ican state that this file is configuration and I don't want to replace it if user did some manual changes. Or I can say that I want to replace it and keep backup of original one. But what I'm missing is some tool to easily merge these files. In Gentoo there is etc-update (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml?part=3&chap=4#doc_…) or dispatch-conf (http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Dispatch-conf) . I'll describe more precisely what feature I'm missing and why I think it's needed. Let's say that I've got some package and there was quite big change in package default configuration file which will affect most of the users. On the other hand users can have pretty complicated constructions in their configuration files and if they did something like that, it's quite possible that they don't need to update their configuration file. So it is needed to tell users that if they are experiencing problems it is most likely because they touched default configuration. I can take care of it manually, mention it in various README and such, but more easier way would be following. User installs some packages. At the end of zypper or yast installation there will be warning "You've got 42 configuration files to merge, please run etc-update/dispatch-conf/whatever". Then user will run some easy interactive tool which will state which configuration files can use some manual merging, it will allow user to see difference between them and let him choose which one he wants or let him merge them manually somehow. Same warning about unmerged configuration files should appear each time user installs something, no matter if this installation didn't add any conflict, until all conflicts are fixed. User will be warned about possible problems, hacker can play with it and keep his changes against distribution defaults and ordinary user will just click on "use distribution default for all" if he ever encounter such a problem (shouldn't happen as ordinary user wouldn't touch configuration files). I explained basic expected work flow, so now what I think should be supported: * detect configuration files, their conflicts and allow their merge - this shouldn't be a big problem as rpm already stores conflicting files as .rpmnew/.rpmold * we probably want to keep even old versions to support three way merge to achieve even better results * if we are already storing these configuration files, maybe we should let users to backup their own changes as well, add support for versioning these configuration files * warn user that he has conflicts in configuration files - will require a little bit yast/zypper integration * merging tool should support both console and graphical interface (maybe use yast as possible frontend) * support for various formats (expandable by plugins) - ordinary diff may not be the best tool for merging XML files or ini files * ordinary user who don't change anything shouldn't need to know about this tool Relations: - Debian-like dist-upgrade live system full version upgrade (feature/id: 305634) Discussion: #1: Michal Hrusecky (-miska-) (2009-06-02 09:49:38) I was thinking about this a little bit more and if we want to support some kind of versioning and we want to use plugins for getting differences, it may be a good idea to request that plugins will be capable not only of producing nice output of difference between configuration files, but it probably should be able to apply it (behave not only as a 'diff', but also as a 'patch'). And we can build some simple version control system on top of it. Advantages: * can handle non-plain text files better (via plugins) * we can implement feature to discard or merge several commits into one to save space/make commit log more readable * can handle nicelly even insane configuration files like sqlite database or compressed directory with configuration files or any other binary format Disadvantages: * probably worse handling of text files * another thing to maintain/possible source of bugs #2: Stephan Kulow (coolo) (2009-06-09 11:51:14) this sounds like a lot of work to do right and with little gain. We lived quite well for years without it and whatever tool you come up will create new problems, there won't be a perfect tool. Applications with very bizzare config format usually come with their own configuration update tool that can be called from %post So I would put very low imporance on this. #3: Andreas Jaeger (a_jaeger) (2009-06-09 14:20:14) (reply to #2) The question is what is really needed to do here. If we could take some scripts from Gentoo and those would work without changes - cool. If we would need to change each and every config file for this, I'm also for rejecting. So, for me it's not clear what the cost is. #4: Michal Hrusecky (-miska-) (2009-06-12 16:12:55) (reply to #3) Well, merging utility can be probably ported from Gentoo with few minor tweaks (although it would be console only utility) or it could be written from scratch (with possible features in mind). This shouldn't be a big problem (it will just take some time). In feature #305634 comment #19 there is even an example how to write such a simple utility. With current rpm workflow, I think there is no need for packages changes. Only thing that would need some adjustements for this feature to be fully functional is integration with yast/zypper so thay will print warning about possible conflicts. I wouldn't suggest to force people to solve, just printing that there are some and that they should solve them using this utility should be enough. So it will need just some hack/new feature in installation procedure - run a program and allow it to create some notification for user. This is probably related to feature #301175 (301175) + #5: Michael Andres (mlandres) (2009-06-15 12:02:05) (reply to #3) + Libzypp checks for changed configfiles, and if they differ the 'diff' + output is written to /var/log/YaST2/ (I don't know if YaST still mails + this to root). Notification is also /var/log/zypp/history, and AFAIK + zypper displays some info as well. But it's not a big deal to have a + more flexible consumer for this information. + The easiest would be to check for the presence of a certain script (or + a directory containing scripts), and if it exists invoke it with + package names and configfiles as argument. Then you can install any + handler you like. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306411

1 0

[openFATE 306313] show clock and battery status in screensaver unlock window
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 14 Jun '09

14 Jun '09

Feature added by: Ludwig Nussel (lnussel) Feature #306313, revision 1, last change by Title: show clock and battery status in screensaver unlock window openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Ludwig Nussel (lnussel) Description: show the current time and battery status in the screensaver's unlock window Test Case: active the screen lock, check if the current time and battery status is displayed Use Case: When sitting in conferences with a laptop and one actually pays attention to the conference the screensaver often kicks in. Pressing a button only shows the unlock window which requires typing the password. Typing on the laptop might be considered impolite during though so it would be useful if the unlock screen would at least show the current time so you know how long the conference is going to take still. Also the remaining battery capacity would be interesting to avoid having the laptop suddenly shut down. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306313

1 5

[openFATE 305877] Popularity contest
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 13 Jun '09

13 Jun '09

Feature changed by: T. J. Brumfield (enderandrew) Feature #305877, revision 15 Title: Popularity contest openSUSE-11.2: Evaluation Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Vladimir Nadvornik (nadvornik) Description: We need a feedback about packages that are preferred by users and actively used. Debian already has a tool named Popularity contest (popcon) * reusing popcon will give us results that are directly comparable with Debian and Ubuntu * packagers team can take care of the package * we need a configuration dialog in YaST that is visible enough * we need a server infrastructure on opensuse.org. (There are certain privacy issues, see Debian FAQ for details) References: http://en.opensuse.org/BrainStorming_Prague#We_don.27t_know_which_packages_… http://popcon.debian.org/FAQ http://popcon.debian.org/ http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ Discussion: #1: Michal Vyskocil (mvyskocil) (2009-02-20 12:56:06) The pupularity-contest executable is a simple Perl script, which should be ported to rpm (replacing of dpkg calls by appropiate rpm alternative should be enough). #2: Pavol Rusnak (prusnak) (2009-03-11 15:53:13) (reply to #1) Replacing of dpkg calls with rpm is a no-go, because of the transactions in RPM. I started to work on a rewrite, will post results soon ... #3: Marek Stopka (m4r3k) (2009-03-13 09:28:08) (reply to #2) And here is a result... :-) http://stick.gk2.sk/blog/2009/03/popcorn-popularity-contest-for-rpm/ #4: Jay Mistry (zmdmw52) (2009-03-15 15:36:25) The software equivalent of Smolts Hardware profiler. Results can be uploaded to a dedicated website (such as is for Smolts- http://www.smolts.org/) so that users can see the relative weight/popularity of various commonly-used applications. + #5: T. J. Brumfield (enderandrew) (2009-06-13 21:16:54) + During install, there can be a simple checkbox such as "Share + hardware/software details with openSUSE servers for profiling." -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/305877

1 0

[openFATE 304894] Yast Product Creator - create a product based on the current system
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 13 Jun '09

13 Jun '09

Feature changed by: Dean Hilkewich (deanjo13) Feature #304894, revision 6 Title: Yast Product Creator - create a product based on the current system openSUSE-11.1: Duplicate of #303047 Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Ladislav Slezak (lslezak) Description: The product creator module should be able to create a product with "Restore" pattern based on the current system. It would allow to easy reinstall the system using the same packages. The current product creator creates the product from scratch. This new option would use the currently installed packages to create a new pattern with all packages to ensure that they are installed at "Restore". References: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=392772 Discussion: #1: Dean Hilkewich (deanjo13) (2009-01-18 06:08:51) Has anything been addressed in this yet? + #2: Dean Hilkewich (deanjo13) (2009-06-13 17:31:32) + WTF is the point of marking something duplicate and linking it to a + internally viewable feature? -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/304894

1 0