Re: ANNOUNCE: Helix Setup Tools

[Frank Felfe <innerspace iname com>]

Hi,

will there be a terminal interface for the Helix Setup Tools too ? This could be
quite usefull in some circumstances:
- you don`t have a X running
- you want to start it remotely (low banwidth and stuff)
- you prefer it this way

Since the backend runs independent from the frontend it should be possible to
use the backend in a different UI.  libglade also generating terminal UI would
be great.

FF

Hans Petter Jansson wrote:

> Helix is proud to introduce the Helix Setup Tools, a set of tools
> that are aimed at providing an easy to use user interface for system
> configuration in Linux/Unix.
>
> Design goals of the Helix Setup Tools
> -------------------------------------
>
> * Targeted to end users:
>
>   These tools are intended to simplify the tasks of configuring a Unix system
>   for workstations. These tools are targeted to people who want to use
>   GNOME systems as their primary workstation.
>
>   They are not intended to be used for configuring UNIX servers or clusters.
>
> * Unified System Configuration:
>
>   Configuring different Unix systems is different; Every Unix system has
>   different ways of being administered. The Helix Setup Tools are targeted
>   towards unifying those systems.
>
> * Multi-platform:
>
>   Each one of the Helix Setup Tools is split in two parts: a backend (which
>   is typically written in Perl) and a user interface frontend (which is
>   typically written in C or Python).
>
>   The backend is written in a way that would allow us to quickly adopt the
>   backend to various different flavors of Unix: the backend "probes" your
>   system to check what kind of system it is running on, and depending on
>   this, it parses the existing system files. Then after the user has
>   finished editing the system settings, the configuration is written back to
>   the system files.
>
>   This means that the Helix Setup Tools use whatever configuration files are
>   available in your system, and you can still edit those files yourself.
>
> This is a work in progress release of the Helix Setup Tools, and fine tuning
> of the user interface is expected to happen before we can deliver the
> ultimate user experience for the desktop.
>
> The tools in this release
> -------------------------
>
> Three Helix setup tools have been released for testing:
>
> Networking       0.1.0  Basic networking.
> Name Resolution  0.1.0  Basic name resolution.
> Shares           0.1.0  Importing and exporting SMB and NFS shares.
>
> They have been extensively tested only with Red Hat, but might work with
> other distributions as well. Proceed at your own risk.
>
> This release provides the tools independently packaged; each comes in its own
> tarball.
>
> Call for developers
> -------------------
>
> We want to have support in Helix Setup Tools for as many Unix systems as
> possible. Supporting a new system is pretty simple, you just need to extend
> the backend Perl script to probe for your system, parse your system
> configuration files and generate your system configuration files.
>
> By keeping the backend as a Perl script we hope that seasoned system
> administrators will be able to contribute to this project without requiring
> any Gtk+ or GNOME programming experience.
>
> The current version only supports Red Hat Linux systems which is what we used
> to develop this.
>
> More information
> ----------------
>
> Introduction: http://www.helixcode.com/desktop/setuptools.php3
>
> Whitepaper:   http://www.helixcode.com/tech/helix-setup-tools.php3
>
> Mailing list: http://lists.helixcode.com/mailman/listinfo/gnome-admin-tools
>
> FTP:          ftp://ftp.helixcode.com/pub/setuptools/
>
> GNOME CVS:    Module "gnome-admin-tools".
>
> Maintainer:   Hans Petter Jansson <hpj@helixcode.com>
>
> Future Work
> -----------
>
> The Helix Setup Tools have been designed to provide a number of extensions
> that will be made available in the future:
>
> * Provinding a CORBA-accessible interface to the configuration tools. This
>   will be achieved by integrating the Perl/CORBA bindings with each one of
>   the backends.
>
> * Cluster configuration: Given that we have a split between the user
>   interface and the backends, we will be writting tools that would enable
>   system administrators to configure clusters of client machines.
>
> * Presets: Through a panel applet users will be able to change system
>   configuration to a number of presets.  For example, the user could have a
>   preset in his laptop for the computer lab, another preset for his home and
>   another for his girlfriend's house.  Depending on those settings the value
>   of your default printer, network connectivity options and so on will be
>   set.
>
> * Roll back support: By archiving previous versions of the XML state of the
>   system, we will be able to rollback the changes to a previous state (yes,
>   we are considering using RCS for storing the configuration history).
>
>   So for instance, if your mom has her computer set up and your cousin goes
>   home and makes a mess out of the configuration, your mom will be able to
>   drag the configuration slider to "2 days ago" and have the configuration of
>   her system the same way it was before the cousin came home.
>
> * Integration with the Control Center: Bradford has been working on the new
>   control center that will integrate the system administration tools into the
>   GNOME Control Center.
>
> * Single tarball: We are going to put all the tools in a single tarball in
>   the future to reuse code between the various components.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> --
> Hans Petter
>
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