KDE Programming Wishlist

This is a list of items that need a programmer to work on. The work is mostly aimed at upstream although in some cases we might be the first distribution to need it and therefore we'll be spearheading development in this area. Other things are simple bug reports that need a programmer to track down.

Port Solid to libudev
Solid is a hardware abstraction layer for KDE. On Linux, it uses HAL to talk to the actual hardware. However, HAL is being deprecated in favor of libudev + DeviceKit-disks + DeviceKit-power. We need to get this ported.

[14:38:21]  For example, Solid, KDE's hardware access abstraction, has a backend for HAL, but HAL is being deprecated in favor of DeviceKit (and some read-only stuff should now be done directly through libudev, without talking to a service like HAL or DeviceKit at all). Writing a DeviceKit backend for Solid is really wanted in Fedora, and AFAIK nobody upstream worked on it yet. [14:38:59]  If you're interested, you should talk to the upstream Solid developers about it, to make sure work is not duplicated and so they can help you. [14:39:10]  nope [14:39:51]  You'll most likely also need to talk to the DeviceKit folks, who are basically GNOME developers. [14:40:00]  did'nt understand [14:40:05]  But it's probably not an easy project. [14:40:28]  but wait [14:40:53]  And the big problem is that documentation is lacking on both ends. [14:41:10]  About Solid: http://solid.kde.org/ - but that page is really old and hasn't been updated for months. [14:41:50]  And DeviceKit doesn't have much documentation outside of Fedora (e.g. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DeviceKit ) at all. [14:41:56]  G_ERWIN: I gtg, time for some sleep for me. I'll give digikam another shot tomorrow on my desktop pc [14:42:03]  the hal and device kit will be deprecated and insted use the lib udev why write a divice kit if this will be deprecated [14:42:04]  I'll let you know what it'll do [14:42:15]  good luck with the debug packages [14:42:26]  Indian: DeviceKit-disks and DeviceKit-power are here to stay. [14:42:31]  and good night to all of you :) [14:42:35] * Kaboon afk [14:42:52] <Kevin_Kofler> The main DeviceKit daemon is being deprecated as well, so the Solid backend should be using libudev for those read-only tasks. [14:43:04] <G_ERWIN> kaboon> welterusten :) [14:43:12] <Kevin_Kofler> But it'll have to use DeviceKit-{disks,power} for mounting disks and for power management. [14:43:37] <Indian> and they will work throug the libudev [14:43:39] <Kevin_Kofler> These tasks really need a systemwide daemon running as root, enumerating hardware doesn't. [14:44:10] <Kevin_Kofler> How they work is really their problem, what you need to know is that they export a D-Bus interface. [14:46:01] <Indian> undertstand [14:47:27] <Kevin_Kofler> Here's where I got the info from that the main DeviceKit daemon is going away (only -disks and -power are going to stay): http://www.hadess.net/2009/05/sixaxis-support-in-bluez.html [14:47:28] <Indian> a d-bus interface to operate and mount the disk and power management [14:47:47] <Kevin_Kofler> Lack of documentation again, why is this only buried in some blog post? [14:48:27] <Indian> and a program to operate for the user to use is this it [14:49:07] <Indian> i'm i write or wrong [14:49:49] <Kevin_Kofler> "Documentation" of libudev: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/libudev/ [14:50:17] <Kevin_Kofler> It's just pure API docs extracted from the headers, no summary even saying what libudev even IS. :-( [14:50:25] Kevin_Kofler can correct me but I think there's already programs that use Solid to export the end user UI. [14:50:43] <Kevin_Kofler> Yes, Solid is a framework which allows KDE apps to access hardware. [14:50:51] <Kevin_Kofler> It's a wrapper designed to be platform-independent. [14:51:16] It's just that the backend behind Solid is being removed and so a new backend for libudev needs to be built. [14:51:23] <Kevin_Kofler> Replacing HAL with DeviceKit-disks, -power and libudev means all KDE apps will use the new APIs and work with the hardware the same way. [14:51:35] <Kevin_Kofler> It'd also bring us some new features, like proper LVM support. [14:51:41] <Kevin_Kofler> HAL doesn't properly support LVM. [14:51:59] <Indian> Ok i can try that project among the others. [14:52:00] <Kevin_Kofler> This breaks things like putting a trash folder on LVM disks. [14:52:16] <Kevin_Kofler> Because KDE doesn't know the disk exists because Solid doesn't because HAL doesn't. [14:52:28] <-- G_ERWIN has left this server (Remote closed the connection). [14:52:46] <Kevin_Kofler> But otherwise, it won't change much for the user in the short run. But it'll keep KDE alive and up to date in the long run.