Re: Partitionint UI stuff...

[Oron Peled <oron actcom co il>]

On 17.06.2009 Jeremy Katz wrote:
> The problem is this "help on mouse action" is going to be some
> anaconda-specific construct and people don't use anaconda often enough
> that a new UI concept is going to stick with them.  

It's really odd to me, why GUI for storage/partitioning
is viewed as an anaconda specific problem. Adding a disk to
a computer is very common task and the current GUI support
is scattered and almost non-existent:
 * system-config-lvm -- only handles LVM.
 * gparted/qtparted -- no LVM support in the shipped parted.
 * RAID?
 * Encrypted partitions?

So the problem is really having a GUI for storage management
which can be used as part of anaconda during install:
 * A set of python classes to abstract storage concepts
   (maybe a lot of this work was already done in the latest anaconda
   storage rewrite -- it should be re-factored out).
 * A set of python GUI classes to wrap this logic.
 * A system-config-storage to bundle it all together for day to
   day use.
 * Than anaconda would either run system-config-storage, or import
   some of the classes.
   (similar to system-config-authentication).

So a lot of the code (though not all) would be used daily by junior
admins:
 * It would make them happy.
 * A large part of the code base would be tested routinely in diverse
   use cases.
 * During install, this part of the GUI would be familiar.
 * After install, admins can have the same user experience as they had
   during install (less surprises are good).

-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron actcom co il                  http://www.actcom.co.il/~oron
May the Source be with you!