Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 21:48:11 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Robert Bonomi <bonomi@mail.r-bonomi.com> Subject: Re: user friendliest gui Message-ID: <20100511214811.34f6706d.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimUaRYden1ZpNG63vD2i5RahpSCtmPQ2306SilM@mail.gmail.com> References: <201005111907.o4BJ7A2M007162@mail.r-bonomi.com> <AANLkTimUaRYden1ZpNG63vD2i5RahpSCtmPQ2306SilM@mail.gmail.com>
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On Tue, 11 May 2010 22:30:08 +0300, Eitan Adler <lists@eitanadler.com> wrote: > > My users here, "no gui" = "machine is broken" And they *do* use computers? :-) > makes it very necessary. Sure. > Anyway if you want a really simple GUI try icewm or dwm. The former recently > had a thread on its mailing list about how to lock it down for use as a > kiosk and the latter has < 5000 lines of code so it should be easy to modify > to your liking if you know some C. If this machine wil be dedicated to just scanning USB sticks, there is NO NEED for a window manager. A (maybe fullscreen) Tcl/Tk wrapper for the programs involved in the scanning process should be completely sufficient. If this machine should do other things, too, maybe it's useful to add xdm, and then be able to logout from the scanner account (of course involving a password, so the clever "no gui = broken" users cannot "accidentally" log out and "break" the machine. With another user account, something else could be done. > Also look at devd(8) for running your script - The devd daemon provides a > way to have userland programs run when certain kernel events happen. That's a very good advice - a way to automate the process. While the scanner application wrapper is waiting for a "devd signal" to start work, the machine can show dancing puppies, play music or show random window decorations (to indicate it's not "broken"). If the "devd signal" arrives, the scanning process starts, and the machine only shows the minimal informations (that the clever users can understand, like "put in the stick" or "take out the stick", but not too complicated, so don't bother them with what kind of virus or malware has been found). Again, Tcl/Tk is an excellent means to implement this. And as a sidenote: As GUIs aren't user friendly in this specific situation (it's always specific, keep in mind), it should be reduced to the minimum to do the job. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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