Quoting Junyong Liang (2026-08-25 17:18:04) > Hi Jonas, > > I agree with you. In fact, HX's default configuration works the same > way—it determines this based on environment variables. After looking > into it, I found that most terminal emulators inject this environment > variable themselves. I haven't been able to reproduce the issue I > encountered earlier, so let's put that aside for now. > > Let's look at what configuration options we can offer users. If the user > simply presses Enter through all the prompts, we can keep the current > behavior as the default.
Yes, we should distinguish between default settings and variability. Upstream provide some internal defaults, and offer wide variability through a user-specific configuration file. What we can do at the package level is a) patch the internal defaults and b) provide a system-wide defaults that a system-admin can alter and c) install-time narrow variability of those system-wide defaults. > If we do provide additional options, how can we > make them quick to configure while still staying within HX's existing > configuration system? For example, could we provide fully predefined > configuration presets? The answer to that really depends on the flexibility of upstream config handling. To be honest, I am not sure if hx supports system-wide defaults currently. If not, then we need to fix that first, eiter by implementing it ourselves (and offer it Upstream) or by convincing upstream to implement it. The ideal would be to have the application obey XDG standards, in my opinion. When system-wide configuration is in place, then yes, we can ask at install time (and re-ask when running dpkg-reconfigure) e.g. "do you want pink background and german help screen and large font?" as one catch-all preset - but I don't think that is a sensible approach - what if I like pink and big but want french instead? It makes sense to come up with full compositions where all the setting play nice together - but then I expect us to try hard to decompose that into components, and think about how it makes sense to ask choices about those components in a way that supports however it is that they integrate well together. As an example, Debian installer first asks you about your primary language and then about choice of keyboard - there are thousands of possible keyboard layouts but you are first suggested 3-5 layouts tied to the language you chose earlier, and an "other" that gives you a larger list - but you are never offered to navigate all combinations, for that you will need to edit configuration files yourself after the general system setup has completed. I think that similarly we should try to both offer ways to offer reasonable variability but not more complex than is possible for us to guide the user through at install time without it bothering them. - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ * Sponsorship: https://ko-fi.com/drjones [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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