KarmicOEMConfigImprovements

Revision 4 as of 2009-06-16 14:37:46

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Summary

Provide additional functionality and polish to oem-config. Keep oem-config in sync with changes in ubiquity by merging the two projects into a single source tree.

Release Note

A number of changes have gone into oem-config to make it more flexible for OEMs looking to deploy Ubuntu.

Rationale

OEMs and OEM engineers have expressed a desire for a number of specific changes to be make to oem-config, to bring it more in line with their needs.

User stories

  • Bob's graphics card will not work properly until after oem-config has been run.
  • Mario would like to provide a EULA for software his company is distributing with their Ubuntu image.
  • Dave is confused as to why he has a number of language pack updates to install for languages he does not speak.

Assumptions

Design

Implementation

  • Investigate falling back to bulletproof-X or failing that, the console-based oem-config when X fails.
  • Add success and failure preseedable commands to oem-config, to match the ones in ubiquity.

Merge ubiquity and oem-config

ubiquity and oem-config are similar in structure and function, but are not built from the same source. This has created a number of problems in the past as copy and pasting code shared between the two projects is often forgotten. For this reason, the two projects should be merged and built as separate packages from the same source tree, or alternatively built as a single application that changes functionality based on a command line parameter.

Care should be taken to preserve history. This can also serve as an opportunity to clean up some of the cruft that has accumulated in the structure of both projects as they've evolved.

If this portion of the specification is not completed in time, recent changes to ubiquity should be carried over, such as a newer version of the timezone map and the keyboard selection UI.

Timezone selection

  • Provide translated timezones in the drop down lists.
  • Add country information to the timezone selection logic, so that when someone clicks south of Austin, TX they do not end up with a Mexican city selection. This will involve adding multiple colors to the color coded map for the same timezone, and modifying the timezone code to account for the change.

  • Add GeoIP support (already being worked on by cjwatson) to make a better default timezone selection.

Network setup

  • Copy Network Manager portion of the keyring to the target system at install.

  • Look into embedding network-manager-netbook or some other NetworkManager frontend in the interface when running in only-ubiquity mode or when in oem-config.

Extra language pack removal

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/oem-config/+bug/315644

Some OEMs preseed all of the language packs to be installed, but the user only ends up using one set, which leads to lots of unnecessary updates for the user. It was suggested that an interface to choose which language packs to keep and which to remove be added to oem-config, but doing this strikes me as dumping the problem created by how we deal with language selection and language packs on the user, who likely doesn't want to be bothered with this kind of question. This should be investigated further and automatically removing unneeded language packs or moving the functionality into computer-janitor be considered as alternative options.

Ability to add pages

It should be easy for OEMs to add pages to oem-config. A special class of this should be created for EULA pages.

Test/Demo Plan

Test cases already exist for oem-config and ubiquity as part of the CD testing procedures.

Unresolved issues

  • Investigate whether it's now possible to create a user with non-latin characters in the username.

BoF agenda and discussion

Address three issues raised by the Canonical OEM Services team:
1. Better time zone selection (less twitchy, translated cities, less crazy drop down (100s of items), not necessarily clear which city to pick). Debconf has support for a translated list (local names) of timezones per country, but we don't use it because country + timezone are picked at the same time.

 * ubiquity and oem-config are similar but the codebases have diverged
 * changes don't always get merged back in
 * timezone selection has been fixed in ubiquity and need to be migrated to oem-config
 * mterry : merging oem-config and ubiquity
   - focus effort on single code base and if possible a single package implementation
 * don't intuitively know which 'city' to choose (use case: I am in Austin, TX and don't realize Chicago is my timezone city) also, set the correct default time server correctly (potential bug)
 * when selecting the nearest city in a timezone, stay whithin the country? (Use case: I click near Austin, TX but a city in mexico gets selected instead of Chicago)
   * make it more clear that the timezone map can be clicked on by timezone
   * potentially zoom on the timezone map near the cursor (Use case: some places the cities are too close together)
     - when zooming, show the cities on the map instead of just the map on the zoomed back view
 * translate city names

http://people.ubuntu.com/~evand/tmp/new_timezone_nyc.png
GEOIP coming, RT ticket

Translated timezones, can do.

2. Keyboard selection is confusing for non-technical users. Can we possibly do this automatically or provide a smaller list to make it less overwhelming (restricted to country the user chose)? User isn't sure how many keys they have or if they have dead keys ("none of mine are broken").

 * again in ubiquity but not yet carried over
 * often we setup a default layout but also install another keyboard layout for the user to switch to after install
   - some method of displaying the actual keyboard layout they have already selected (think picture of keyboard)
   - more usability testing with the keyboard selection
   - possibly use a 'calculate layout' option (from alternate installer)
 * localization support
 * usernames are limited to latin characters
 * hovering text in native language

c http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=609

Could do keyboard detection by a few key presses, but we have limited resources and that's a lot of work.

3. Setup wifi, so it's ready to go on first user experience, and we can download language packs.

 * Don't have network manager running because it is not a full gnome session
 * how do you carry the setup over to the user session or save to their settings
  * put the configuration into the installed system (for ubiquity) for the user

Network Manager Netbook: http://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2009-05-21.html

4. username limit to latin chars

 * covered above

5. Fallback to -debconf config if X fails (https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/oem-config/+bug/315647)

 * Use case: user boots to the system, but it doesn't boot into X
  - fall back to a usable debconf instead of nothing
 * will fall back to bullet-proof X after they setup their user
  - what about falling back to bullet-proof X for the user setup? and never drop the user back into a console

6. Purge unneeded language packs (https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/oem-config/+bug/315644)

 * Use case: we preinstall all language packs, when the user installs the system, they still have tons of unused languages installed and now need to update them which takes longer than nessesary
  - solvable by network connectivity and downloading just the one you need? what about no network
  - if you are not on the dvd and use the cd you download the needed language pack
 * choose which language packs to keep and which ones (all the others) to purge after the oem-config process
  - prevent unnessesary package updates
  - computer janitor?
  - language selector?
 * at least the default language needs to be there, other languages could be done later

7. Add support to show EULAs for third party packages

 * EULA text is also localized
 * potentially a EULA viewing page object that can show EULAs

8. Simplify mechanism to add pages to wizard

9. hooks to run scripts after oem-config completes (system hooks, user hooks)

 * Ubiquity does this, so should oem-config
 * add to debconf template
 * we have scripts that need dpkg and oem-config has a lock on it
 * useful to have a script for the first time the user logs in
  - Use case: finding out the translated music directory?, also for branding

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