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Date:      Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:27:00 +0200
From:      Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
To:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   ESR's CML2
Message-ID:  <20010410172659.R14673@lpt.ens.fr>

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I was reading ESR's announcement of the 1.0 release of his
CML2 (Configuration menu language), which he wrote for the
linux kernel:
  http://lwn.net/daily/cml2-1.0.php3
The main web page of the project is at
  http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/cml2/

It looked interesting to me.  Is there any possibility that it
could be used in FreeBSD, to make configuration easier for
beginners?

The problem he mainly wants to address is to make linux kernel
configuration easier for beginners, by giving easy choices to them
which will automatically track all dependent choices (via an X-based
menu if they want), while at the same time not taking any power away
from the experts.  But he has designed it as a language (using python)
without any specific reference to the linux kernel; so (he says) the
Embedded Debian project has adopted it for both kernel and package
configuration, and someone's trying to port Mozilla to it too.

It seems to me that there are at least three things in FreeBSD which 
could benefit from this:
  (a) kernel configuration
  (b) system installation
  (c) the ports collection
All three are pretty easy if you know what you're doing, but perhaps
beginners find the process a bit challenging.  

The ports/packages collection does a good job of tracking
dependencies, but there are problems.  The most common is when you are
installing A, which depends on B version 1.2, but you already have B
version 1.0.  If B 1.0 can be cleanly replaced with B 1.2, the system
should just yank out B 1.0 altogether and replace it with B 1.2 (eg,
upgrading from gtk 1.2.8 to 1.2.9) but if it cannot be simply
replaced, it should install the two separately without conflict.
Often it doesn't do the correct thing, and over a span of a year or so
a lot of things can get messed up if you aren't careful.  Maybe it can
even lead to a unified ports tree, with diffs based on which BSD
you're running, or something?

I don't know how easily such problems can be addressed with Raymond's
scheme or what sort of work is already going on, but this looked like
an interesting thought, anyway.  I may have some spare time in summer
to play around with such things.

Rahul 

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