The VASM Development Thread ( and how to test )

[M0E-lnx]

VASM is one of the few tools that make the VectorLinux distro a unique system.  It makes system administration and tuning fairly easy.  However, as time goes by the distro evolves, and ends up rendering some of the components of vasm useless on newer VL versions.  This saddens me.  For a while, bistolfi, myself, and from time to time a couple of other members of this community have had long and detailed tasks about improving not only vasm, but the way the distro is installed and configured.  With that in mind, I'd like to present to you some of the things I've been working on.  Before going into details, I'd like to state that the user interface(s) to these tools are very likely to change.  The purpose of this is to showcase the capabilities of the  backend tools i've been working on and that will be used in the near future for several different tasks during system installation and configuration.  These tools are written from scratch in python and most of them emulate what the legacy vasm tools do.  Writing them in python allows them to be plugged into other tools (such as installers).

[disclaimer]

This is (very) experimental software, so if you mess up your system with it you should know how to restore it manually.  Dont post here saying this broke your install, because I just warned you.

[/disclaimer]

DEPENDENCIES
Before you get the source and test it out, you must make sure your installation meets the dependencies.  Some forum members have been working on getting the necessary packages to our repos, so they may be in testing or unstable.  You need these packages installed on a VL 7.0 system:

• urwid (latest revision for their mercurial repos)
• setuptools version 0.6c11 or better
• pyparted version 3.5 or better
• pexpect (install using easy_install pexpect)

These are available at https://bitbucket.org/m0e_lnx/vasm/downloads

After you have those installed, you need to install mercurial to check out the source.  This can be done via slapt-get or gslapt or by doing

Code:

easy_install mercurial

as root in a terminal.

GETTING THE SOFTWARE
After installing mercurial, you are ready to check out the source code, so cd to some place in your home (I keep mine in ~/devel, so lets use that).  Do this as non-root user

Code:

mkdir ~/devel && cd ~/devel

Now checkout a copy of the code.  Run the following command as non-root user

Code:

hg clone https://bitbucket.org/m0e_lnx/vasm

Now you have a copy of my working code.  Downloading code this way allows you to test the latest changes.  To get the lastest changes at any time, do this as non-root user

Code:

cd ~/devel/vasm && hg pull && hg update

RUNNING IT
Now you have the code, your deps should be met, and you should be ready to run it.  This does not install anything to your box, it simply downloads the temporary working environment that I'm working with.

There are 2 gtk user interfaces, and 1 text interface to this thing:

• panedui.py is a dual-paned gtk interface
• plainui.py is a single-paned gtk interface
• tvasm.py is the text mode interface (Run this in a full screen terminal or switch to init < 4)

You may run any of these by calling the following command in a terminal

Code:

python panedui.py

change "panedui.py" to whichever interface you want to test.

BUGS / FEATURE REQUESTS
ALL bugs and feature requests must be submitted here https://bitbucket.org/m0e_lnx/vasm/issues
There is "Create Issue" button on the right side of the screen.  Issues can be bug reports or feature requests.  You do not need to be a member on bitbucket to report bugs, so there should be no reason stopping anyone testing this to properly report a bug.

While the user interfaces are likely to change, it is likely they will be modeled after these or using these as a base.  So I'd like to get the community's opinion as to their favorite of the 2 GUI interfaces, and input on the text interface.

Keep in mind, this is under heavy development and the text interface does not yet have all the modules available, but if you followed this guide to get the source code, you can update any time and get new features as they show up in the code.

If you are a python programmer and would like to help in the development process, drop me a message or post here.

[pierce.jason]

BUGS / FEATURE REQUESTS
ALL bugs and feature requests must be submitted here https://bitbucket.org/m0e_lnx/vasm/issues

Just a few notes to reiterate what M0E already said "You do not need to be a member on bitbucket to report bugs":

For those of you who might be apprehensive about creating yet another login account name somewhere, rest assured that bitbucket is capable of authenticating you using a number of OpenID providers.

You can re-use your Google(GMail), Yahoo, Aol(AIM), Flickr, or Wordpress OpenID login on bitbucket.

Additionally, anonymous bug posting is permitted by bitbucket. So you don't have to use any login at all if you don't want to.

[pierce.jason]

Here's a visual walk-through of some of what I think are a few of the more interesting modules from the new python VASM.

We'll start with modules available to all users and then move to modules that require root authentication. Several of these screenshots provide a side-by-side comparison between the Graphical User Interface and the Textmode User Interface for pyVASM.


Some basic info about your system can be found in the "About Vector" module. This is module is currently available in both GUI ( panedui.py) and in TUI (tvasm.py).



If your desktop or applications get a little too "customized" or otherwise out of wack, you can reset them to the defaults with this module. As with the previous, "Reset Rationalization" or "Reset Personal Settings" is available in both GUI and TUI.



To get to the more "system" oriented tools, we must first gain root level access. Escalating to root can be done by clicking "More Settings" in the GUI or selecting "More Options" in the TUI. pyVASM will then ask you for your root password. In the TUI, this can be a bit startling at first as the screen goes black and you might think you've been dumped back to the terminal. Never fear, there's a password prompt down there awaiting your attention.
 


Since we just authenticated and have user accounts on the brain, let's take a look at the "Users and Passwords" user management module. The TUI side is still catching up with the GUI here, but the beginnings are already in place. Here you can see I have navigated to "Properties" in the GUI, in order to manage permissions/group membership.



I have one last screenshot that features both GUI and TUI in side-by-side view. This is probably my favorite feature presently in pyVASM. This module allows you to manage what services and system daemons are started for each of the system runlevels.


Another screenshot from the "System Services" module in the GUI shows us the excellent documentation and in-program help that we can expect to see. In green we have per-line help describing the function of individual system daemons. I also found similar per-line descriptions for groups in the "Users and passwords" GUI.



And the final module of this visual walk-through is a nifty tool that lets you select and deselect software repositories for Gslapt and slapt-get. "Software Sources" is currently only available in the GUI.



I hope you all have enjoyed the screenshots and that they have peaked your interest in the new python VASM!

[Lyn]

All looking good, will have to start changing over to the 7.0 branch to have a go at this.  Question is this intended as an add on to 7.0 when its released or for the next 7.2 release?  Will it work across the range of Vectors (Standard, Light, SoHo)?

[M0E-lnx]

All looking good, will have to start changing over to the 7.0 branch to have a go at this.  Question is this intended as an add on to 7.0 when its released or for the next 7.2 release?  Will it work across the range of Vectors (Standard, Light, SoHo)?

will most likely not be ready by the time 7.0 goes final, but will be released as an addon.   will work acceoss all releases.

[M0E-lnx]

One more thing, on that last screenshot Jason posted, the repositories tool, if you scroll way to the right, you can also change the repo's priority value right from the gui.  A There is a drop down box at the very right of every line.

[M0E-lnx]

Alpha 1 has been released.  You can download it here https://bitbucket.org/m0e_lnx/vasm/downloads/vasm-3.0a1-noarch-1vl70.txz

Will also be available from the repos soon.

I have uploaded a few screenshots of 3.0 alpha 1 to my flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/m0e-lnx

[Tigger]

This is shaping up to be really nice.  I'll have to check it out as I would like to help update the live tools and installer based on this new vasm which looks way better than the old one.