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RFC Programming - revised

Did not put it into correct HTML

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<Title> Tasks for programmers</Title>
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<H1>Now is the hour for every good man...<H1>

...and woman to do something for Independence, Linux and Linux
users who are presently abandoned to an unknown fate.
<br>

These are the most urgent tasks available for programmers.

<ol>
<li><H>Fix and improve the installation</H3>

<p>
The installation of 6.1 has several annoying bugs:  it 
drops you to console mode when it does not auto detect a serial mouse 
instead of asking what type of mouse is available; the
console install allows selecting the national keyboard but in effect does
nothing, that fact  is <em>not</em> provided in a package
description while in console mode; Red Hat installs packages
mostly in alphabetical order which sometimes results in packages 
with links to install scripts broken because the utility they need installs later.
</p>

<p>
More additions are needed to add to the features of Indy 6.0-0.8: a "Personal
computer" install class (like Workstation but with a different
software selection); a configuration for dial up networking at install
time.  In future releases, we would like a graceful handling of
conflicting packages. Until then, we will be unable to provide
alternatives to some servers we feel are an overkill in small
companies.
</p>

<P>The installation is mostly written in Python with some C parts.</p>

<li><H3>A curses based PPP configuration front end to Wvdialconf</H3>

<p>Red Hat provides an X based tool but it cannot be used by people
who have problems with X and those who have to use console
installation.  Also, the Red Hat tool does not allow the user
to choose PPP auto configuration.  Someone has promised to do this 
job but volunteers with knowledge of auto PPP configuration are welcome
to provide ideas and help.
</p>

<li><H3>Kernel compiling</H3>

<p>This time it looks like Red Hat's kernel is bigger than usual, 
someone needs to  investigate which modules have been built in and which
modules have not.  Indy's philosophy is to ship kernels of
performance close enough to match a hand built one, where a user does not
need to spend time recompiling  unless this it is his idea of fun . It seems that the 2.2.12 
kernel that is shipped in Red Hat has several annoying bugs which have been 
removed in 2.2.13.  This is a relatively demanding job.
</p>

<li><H3>A front end to install-news</H3>

<p>Install-news allows easy configuration of a news server in the way
install-sendmail allows easy configuration of sendmail.  But it would
be better with a front end.  In the way the front end that Donovan Rebecchi
wrote for install-sendmail needs to be upgraded for newer versions of
install-sendmail</p>

<li><H3>Write Liberators</H3>

<p>They are called assistants in some systems but what would you
expect of a project called Independence.  :-)
</p>

<li><H3>A good Samba browser</H3>

<P>We would like to provide a tool for exploring the network
environment and mounting SMB shares with a mere mouse click.  There
are four tools available for Linux and none is satisfactory:
<bd>knetmon</bd> seems to quite simply not work, <bd>Gnorba</bd>and
its close cousin <bd>Knorba</bd> use a terminally brain damaged method
of exploring networks.  All of these are written in C or C++.  The
only tool which nearly works is <bd>TkSmb</bd> but it has several
drawbacks , mainly it creates mount points on the fly without ever
removing them, lacks a graceful termination method or a way to
allow mounting but not unmounting.  Also, it appears TkSmb 
is no longer maintained.  <bd>TkSmb</bd> is written in expect and uses
Tk.</p>

<p>Pick one of these four and make it work like it should</p>

</ol>


</ol>

<H2>Things will not just happen...</H2>

<p>...if people don't work on them.  A small team will not be able to further
Indy's progress.  If you are tired of getting
distributions which don't pay attention to your problems, and if you want to
help to make a distribution for the people, and more importantly, if you think Linux
is a good thing that should be available for everyone instead of a
minority then <HREF Joining page>
</p>

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