Grant Kelly wrote:
I think some of the other posters have missed one of the key points in this request. "The purpose of this course is to go through a software engineering process and actually develop an idea into software." Although the "software engineering process" that's to be used isn't specified, I have to assume that UNR has been teaching one or more models.Hello list,
My name is Grant Kelly and I am a computer science student at the University of Nevada, Reno. I am enrolled in a course called Senior Projects. The purpose of this course is to go through a software engineering process and actually develop an idea into software. I would like to take this opportunity to develop something for the Gentoo (or Linux) community. One requirement is to have a graphical user interface, even an extremely simple one is fine.
So basically I am looking for an idea or topic for something that needs to be done. The project would of course be open-source as I would host it on source forge. There will be three (myself included) students involved with the project. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome.
Feel free to email me privately: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanks, Grant Kelly
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Grant, could you elaborate on which, if any, of the models you are constrained to use? The reason I bring this up is that some of the processes require extensive documentation, especially early in the "requirements" phase of the project. Given that, I've been thinking about what makes Gentoo unique and makes it my distro of choice.
Clearly that, IMHO, is Portage -- package management, customization and optimization. Certainly it meets the requirements -- the "must-haves" for those tasks. So I'll focus on an area where I'd like a little more than what's in the basic Portage. How about a graphic version of "glsa-check?"
Essentially, whenever a Gentoo system is connected to the Internet, this package would scan the GLSA reporting site. Whenever a new alert appeared, the package would scan your system for packages matching the alert. If a match occurred, a GUI would open up and allow you to emerge the fix or unmerge the insecure package.
I saw a posting a while back somewhere, I think on a Gentoo forum, from someone who runs "glsa-check" every hour. It's pretty easy to make the time period adjustable. So a brief list of high-level requirements would be:
1. The package must be a standard Portage "ebuild" and compile from source. Any language supported by Gentoo may be used.
2. The package must scan the GLSA site for new security updates whenever the Gentoo system is connected to the Internet. The frequency of this scanning must be selectable by the user.
3. When the package detects a new security update, the package must bring up a window on a graphic console. Which users and consoles receive these windows must be configurable by the user, and provision must be made for the case when no graphic window is available; i.e., only command-line windows are available.
4. The window created must contain the complete text of the GLSA update, and allow the user to select at least two options: remove the insecure package or install a fixed version. The reason I added the "remove" option is that there are some packages (the name "squirrelmail" leaps to mind :) ) that have such frequent security updates that a user may just decide to ditch them.
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