My JWuN Project idea.... what are your thoughts.

Jason (spot) Brower encompass at gmail.com
Tue Apr 15 06:53:15 UTC 2008


I have proposed the JWuN project for Google Summer of Code and wanted
to get the ideas of everyone, mentor or not about what hardware could
be used software could we worry about in this project.
The abstract and information of what I submitted should be enough to
give you an idea of what it will do...
---ABSTRACT
So many distros, Fedora, Red Hat, Mandriva, Ubuntu, try to create a
distro that covers as many bases as possible when it comes to the
hardware and software.  Now I feel that the Linux kernel is getting
very good at covering almost all the bases when it comes to hardware.
It's amazing to install Linux and have every driver already installed
and ready.
But what about software, what software do we have to help with that.
we can't include all that software that is used to access that
hardware. It would fill the entire computer.  It tends to cause
confusing when a user doesn't know whether or not they have bluetooth
when they keep seeing the bluetooth preferences program in the System
Menu like in Ubuntu.  What about scanning.  When a scanner is
installed the hardware/driver side is taken care of but many distros
don't have a scanning software installed by default.
Even if the user knows that they have no software to access it, they
don't know what software out of so many packages to install.  They
have to talk to the community of users and formulate an answer out of
opinions.
THE IDEA:
I think we could create a software that can look at their hardware on
the computer and come to a conclusion of what hardware they have and
what software would be good to install.
Ideas could include the following:
*USB scanner : Xsane
*BlueTooth Adapter : OpenObexFTP, blue proximity, ganyremote
*USB Remote: elisa, ganyremote
*USB Webcam : Cheese, or aMSN or others  this could be asked.
*MightyMouse : Xorg Changes for the side scrolling and squeeze button
*Fingure Print reader : thinkFinger ( and inform that there is no gui
based setup and point to a link for more help)
---DETAILS
 I could start be creating production documentation talking about what
the scope and goal of the program would be.  This would be done along
with my mentor and would hopefully be complete even before I can start
coding.
I could cover:
*What hardware could we cover.
*What ways can we retrieve information about the computer. For
example, should we use lspci or simple look in udev, lsusb or all of
them.  Or perhaps we could simple ask the user what hardware they have
too.
*What scope would this program cover.
*How would this information about the computer be stored. For example,
should I have this information sent to a central server or should this
information just be guessed of manually entered by certain people.

>From this information I would start to work over a mock program on a
low fi paper prototype and test the program on subjects that use Linux
and record their reactions.  From these recorded film sessions I can
create a gui that is not only easy to use but gets the job done.
>From here, I start coding.  I will be using python and pygtk for this
part of the assignment and create a gui that matches the work I did in
the low fi prototype.

I hope to complete it with enough time to have a few people enter
there hardware information and we test it to see if it's working
properly.

Other notes:  This project is something that I know will need a lot of
tender care far past what GSoC is paying.  If I get this project I
intend to make it a long term commitment.  This would be a very
powerful program that I can put on a CV.  Not something I just drop.

About Me:
I am a Business Information Technology Student... I am president of
the Linux Club at my school and am THE goto guy at my school for
people needing help with their desktop Linux systems. I install linux
on a new computer about 2 or 3 times a week.  When people want, get,
or already have hardware they want to work in Linux, I am their man.
I programing in Python and use the GTK+ toolkits to making things look
pretty.  I take great concern in making a program user friendly and
have studied courses that focus on this logic.
I was in GSoC last year and successfuly created a program called
PyStart.  I have learned how to program A LOT better since then.
I currently have one active project I am working on.  It's just about
at it's 1.0 stable release.  It's called MeMaker.  It makes SVG based
avatars from user submited theme sets.  These avatars can be exported
into many formats and locations.  For example, you can export to your
Gmone "about me" picture.  Our goal with this program is to create
avatars that can be easily synced and created in many places at once.

Please inform me if you have any other questions on the subject. :D
---
Some things that came to mind with the program is using libhal rather
than parsing all the information from programs like lshw, lspci,
etc...  I agree with that.  I even had someone mention package kit
which would make crossDistro work simpler in many ways.
The biggest things I want to get from this email is some support from
others that feel this idea can float and would be useful to Fedora and
other Distros.
Also if you like, you can jot down some hardware that has some
software that is not included by default in fedora but could be a
great advantage if they had that software.
One big example is bluetooth could have blueproximity installed.
What other ideas can you come up with?
Regards,
Jason Brower




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