[Nix-dev] optional packages for KDE

[Wolfgang Jeltsch]

Am Freitag, 27. November 2009 14:53:06 schrieben Sie:
> I believe that […] networking.enableWLAN […] might be what you want.
> 
> […]
> 
> Although it needs improvements because using /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
> is not ideal and the expression only works if you have iwlan0. Any other
> device name will fail.

Isn’t wlan0 more common?

> Hopefully wpa_supplicant.nix will have more functions in the future. It's
> actually something I want to hack in future because I have a reasonable
> understanding and hardware to test it on, if I can find time.

This would be very helpful, I think.

> As far as the qt4 kde4 stuff goes, I don't think anyone wants a full
> kde4 by default

Does anyone know if other distros provide a complete KDE by default?

> and there are things that won't work, like 3rd party plasmoids because kde 4
> has a complex way of updating it's dependant software and configurations
> every time they change, which can't be handled by nix (Yet.)

Are there any ideas about how to solve these problems?

> Like it's menu cache and service & plugin paths. […] So if you rebuild kde
> using nix, the location of say a shipped with kde desktop wallpaper that you
> have set which is different to the default kde wallpaper, changes. The
> configuration created by kconf then points to the old location of the file in
> the nix store. If you then garbage collect the nix store and optimise it,
> the file location changes completely and the configurations generated by kconf
> largely become invalid. So in that example the desktop wallpaper would not
> be found and the desktop will display the default kde wallpaper instead of
> the kde wallpaper that was selected.
>
> So, if you can follow my explanation, you can understand the problem
> because things like plasmoids can be configured in the same way.

Hmm, looks like a serious problem. Wouldn’t it be possible to generate a 
directory with symlinks to KDE wallpapers and all this stuff, and let KDE users 
reference these symlinks in their config files? Then when switching to a 
different KDE version, only the directory with the symlinks would have to be 
rebuilt.
 
> The network manager plasma widget is still in kde.org's trunk, it's
> still quite basic and has not yet been released.

Well I think, Kubuntu uses it for a year already. With varying success, to be 
fair.

> I can't see the urgent need for network manager in nixos because
> configuration.nix takes care of things like that using upstart jobs, one
> central place (configuration.nix) of configuration is how nixos works and
> relying on point and click is largely a windows way of doing things for the
> immature.

Do you think, a user should have to become root in order to connect to some 
wireless network when on the road? Consider a shared business laptop where 
only some member of the technical stuff has admin rights.

Best wishes,
Wolfgang