Subject: [alpine-devel] Alpine linux review

From: Mika Havela <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2011 15:00:33 +0100

Hello developers (and Alpine Linux followers).

I just wanted to share with you a link to a Swedish (one of the most
popular) computer magazine.
They had a article on Alpine Linux, and the review was very good!

This magazine does tests on various hardware and software, and all
these tests result in some recommendations.
The results could be one of these alternatives: "Best in test",
"Recommended", "Not recommended" or no comment at all.

Alpine Linux got "Recommended" which is really good (the "Best in
test" is not allways the most recommended product due to various
reasons, so having "Recommended" is not a bad thing related to "Best
in test" nomination)

Some headlines in the article are:
  * Impressive speed
  * User-friendly and helpful scripts
  * ACF corresponds to Webmin
  * Well worth a try

The article is a good reciept on that Alpine Linux is a good candidate
and that all the hard work that has been put into this project is high
quality code.
A big "Thank you!" to all who contributed - and those who will
contribute in the future :-)

Link to the article (use a online translator to see the text in your language):
http://www.datormagazin.se/artiklar/tester/20110201/test-alpine-linux-212

<<mhavela>>

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 13:50:14 +0000

On Thu, 3 Feb 2011 15:00:33 +0100

> They had a article on Alpine Linux, and the review was very good!
...
> http://www.datormagazin.se/artiklar/tester/20110201/test-alpine-linux-212

Wow. That was a very positive review.

Some things I'd like to comment:

* They wrote that Alpine Linux doesn't look newbie friendly out on the
  paper, but the on-line documentation is an exception. "Without
  insinuate that the user is an idiot, it guides the user through the
  digital alpine landscape". And they write that there is a little
  humor in between.

  So thanks for all the hard work that has been put in the
  documentation.

* It seems like the author never managed to get the graphical
  interface up and running. We might want work a bit on that part,
  at least so journalists can get it up and running... ;)

* He liked ACF, so a big thanks to you who wrote/maintains ACF. When I
  come back to work I'd like to have a look at integrating the setup
  scripts with a cli ACF.

Thanks!

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From: Ted Trask <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 06:47:49 -0800 (PST)

Very nice review.

Natanael, I would like to work more on the cli interface to ACF, but I'm not 
sure of the best approach. One exists basically because I needed it for my own 
needs, but it has some serious flaws. Perhaps we could have a design discussion 
when you get back to make the cli actually usable.

Ted

----- Original Message ----
From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
To: Mika Havela <[email-masked]>
Cc: alpine <[email-masked]>
Sent: Fri, February 4, 2011 8:50:14 AM
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] Alpine linux review

...

Thanks!

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 14:57:28 +0000

On Fri, 4 Feb 2011 06:47:49 -0800 (PST)
Ted Trask <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Very nice review.
> 
> Natanael, I would like to work more on the cli interface to ACF, but
> I'm not sure of the best approach. One exists basically because I
> needed it for my own needs, but it has some serious flaws. Perhaps we
> could have a design discussion when you get back to make the cli
> actually usable.

yes. while there, I'd also like to lay the foundation for a gtk+ view
(using lua-lgob).

-nc

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From: Nathan Angelacos <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:10:12 -0800

> yes. while there, I'd also like to lay the foundation for a gtk+ view

Ted. Do you have a "wishlist" of things that you'd like for ACF?

* One thing completely wrong in the original design was no route 
controller; I'd like to get one done.

* I'm not sure the table inheritance was the best idea either.  (at 
least the way the original author did it)

* We need a skin based on K0gen's wikimedia skin.

If we get a list of things we think we want to shoot for, perhaps we can 
start with simplifying/reducing the existing code.  E.g. remove what 
doesn't work to make it even simpler, rather than just add more features.

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From: Natanael Copa <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 02:08:20 +0000

On Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:10:12 -0800
Nathan Angelacos <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > yes. while there, I'd also like to lay the foundation for a gtk+
> > view (using lua-lgob).
> >
> 

There is a lua library named penlight (the apk is lua-penlight) which
gives you lot of the python candy for 320kb. That includes an OOP lib.
I am seriously considering it for my aports.lua library. I have run some
tests with it already and it makes code slightly slower but i think it
might be worth it.
 
> * We need a skin based on K0gen's wikimedia skin.

I don't think k0gen made the skin.

> If we get a list of things we think we want to shoot for, perhaps we
> can start with simplifying/reducing the existing code.  E.g. remove
> what doesn't work to make it even simpler, rather than just add more
> features.

Maybe use the bug tracker for that?

Oh, one thing I always have thought about the default skin, is that
the tabs are seriously misplaced. The author of the article mentioned
that too. It should be much more visual clear that the tabs are
logically under the left menu. (moving the tabs down into the white
area helps)

Second thing about the skin is that it needs to be more lightweight. I
have heard people doing support over 100kbit/s lines (or via RDP) and
the nice alpine image slow things down significantly. We could simplify
and optimize that.

-nc

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From: William Pitcock <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 20:59:15 -0600

Hi Ted,

> could have a design discussion when you get back to make the cli

Natanael and I were talking about redoing the installer as a framework
invoking components of ACF.  Then the installer-specific packages would
be ACF components with specific prompts stored in the Model.

I think the CLI should basically run through the model rendering the
content as prompts.  We could then build a GTK+ based view using
lua's gobject binding module which is maintained by Natanael, which
would allow us to have a nice little "Install to HDD" icon you could
doubleclick on the Desktop livecd build of Alpine.

This would allow us to have one single 'setup-alpine' application for
doing the install on the CLI, and then a 'setup-alpine-gtk' application
which would be the GTK version for Desktop livecd.  It wouldn't be too
much of a stretch then to build gtk+ to work with directfb and have a
graphical installer that was standalone too.

William

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