RestrictedManagerRewrite

Revision 5 as of 2007-11-01 17:56:03

Clear message

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

The original code architecture of restricted-manager was very narrow, focusing on non-free kernel drivers in a Gnome application. A lot of new features have been bolted on this original structure, such as the KDE frontend, grouping of handlers, support for firmware installation, or non-free support packages of drivers which are free by themselves. This made the code very interdependent and hard to maintain/bugfix/understand.

We review the list of existing and proposed features and create a new code architecture which will be rewritten from scratch (with reusing most of the existing code modules, of course).

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

This should cover the _why_: why is this change being proposed, what justifies it, where we see this justified.

Use Cases

Assumptions

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

  • data migration, if any
  • redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
  • how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during CD testing, and to show off after release.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Outstanding Issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

Design needs to accommodate these features:

  • move away from being Ubuntu specific to a proper upstream project
  • DE agnostic handlers, but they sometimes need to ask questions → need to call abstract UI message boxes etc.
  • HW detection logic and workflow with abstract UI → KDE/Gnome/CLI/noninteractive test suite implementations
  • basic handler must not make assumptions about kernel modules, etc.
  • handler types:
    • restricted kernel module (vmware/OSS)
    • restricted kernel module + additional magic (nvidia/ati)
    • free kernel module + additional magic (sl-modem-daemon)
    • free kernel module + firmware in l-r-m (ipw3945)
    • free kernel module + non-shipped firmware (bcm43xx)
    • grouping (all three vmware modules, or all two dozen OSS drivers)
    • support other use cases, too
    • discuss: more cases?
  • handlers must be aware of

    /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common without hardcoding this too deeply, since it is highly Ubuntu specific

  • framework provides modalias reading/overriding and other common hardware detection functions, but individual handlers need to extend/override those (some handlers do not have a kernel module attached)
  • Needs a sensible CLI for integration into desktop effects configuration, etc.
  • Drop the runme_as_root() madness, since it is inappropriate for other distros, makes assumptions about the authentication backend, and is only used for a corner case (enabling nvidia driver in compiz control panel, but this

could run r-m through gksu itself if it wants to).

Proposed new design

attachment:restricted-manager.png

(Dia source: attachment:restricted-manager.dia)


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