Manjaro Control Panel (ex-MSM-ng)

MCP is a tool to replace old Manjaro Settings Manager so will allow to do tasks such as Kernel/LanguagePack/etc management.

Dashboard module is new to MCP and overlaps with KInfoCenter a bit but is aimed to provide more system basic information and some help notifications.

Yes, I plan to support/work only on Manjaro as it’s in core depends on pamac library and our repository’s kernels and other things.

Is not easily integratable into MCP and I honestly don’t see any reason for such in-depth information to be in system settings rather than a separate application.

So, the ability to set things related to maintenance perfectly fits the target once it replaces the Manjaro Settings Manager.

I would enjoy a lot if you can add as many options as possible.

It’s very wise for a developer to define were any information needs to be set up. Central place? fragment places? redundant places?

Due to the modular philosophy for linux I see the tendency of fragmentation and command lines, but if a system like Manjaro can do something for integration like central places and GUI, it will benefit a lot of users, mainly the ones that don’t know or don’t care how linux works, they only needs easy way to use their personal computer. I’m using Manjaro/Linux, less than 1 year and I can’t differentiate the Job Manjaro does from the Job Plama team does in terms of system integration. I think from users perspective all the requests will come to Manjaro, and Manjaro team manage with other teams.

Let me use car for instance, if you have a car from specific Brand and if you have problem or suggestion, you will contact the dealer for that Brand, because that Brand integrate the whole system (CAR), think about going in the dealer and they saying to you:
The audio is not our responsibility, please, contact Siemens
The tire is not our responsibility, please contact Goodyear
The driveline is not our responsibility, please contact Dana

Customers expects that who integrates the system will response for all the system, and manage things internally. I added this because someone already asked me to open thread to KDE.

Regarding basic information, you maybe could do a survey to identify for different users what they understand as basic information. Sometimes people buy pre build PC and want to know/confirm what hardware they are made, ordinary people may don’t need too much detail about the hardware but CPU model, motherboard model and others are basic. Additionally, if my Ethernet/wireless works with 4 different speeds, what is the current speed of my network? if I mouse-over at the network icon in the system tray I can’t see my current speed, I need to click on it, click to drop the menu and then click in details. It may worth to have this information redundant in the MPC.

Why not use the KDE Notification area in the system tray for notifications? fragmenting notifications to the MCP will benefit the user experience?

They are not notifications but a list of potential issues. Notifications could be sent when there is something new in that list for example.

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Hey Artyom how about implementing a regular automatical check for the presence of EOL kernels and notifying user if found any? Something that would decrease a number of reported issues related to old dependencies and so on? Similar to what MSM does now when it sees a custom kernel built by user (that’s what I personally have seen before).

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I’m not sure how kernel version update notification can decrease dependencies issues, kernels are not quite related to the userspace system. But of course, support for EOL check will be there for sure as well as custom kernels detection.

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I mean to notify people about EOL kernels they need to delete to prevent such “issues” from occurring:

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It should be shown somehow during the update and I’m not 100% sure how it could be implemented better…

Yeah it is shown during the update, correct. The problem is people usually ignore long walls of text or fail to notice one tiny string or warning among other many strings of “updating XXX” and “running hook YYY”.
What MSM does now, for example, it uses Plasma notification system to show a notification if I boot to, say, non-existing Linux kernel v 5.16 (like “You are running unsupported kernel”). I think the same thing should be shown for EOL kernels as well. A GUI thing, not a text in a terminal output. That’s what I’m trying to explain.

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Yeah.
I think MSM has this feature but it seems it’s semi-broken… Sure this thing will be in MCP with no doubts

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Having linux-latest would remove this issue without the need to code it.

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@LordTermor How far is development on this tool?

Is it possible to test it or still to early?

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“Kernels” is done more or less but without actual changelogs (needs to be checked how/where from to pull them easier). “Language Packs” is done as well. Other modules need tweaking and MHWD is still in concept only.

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That would be comical to have Manjaro team bring that back after all the arguing about the need for it to be removed because it was a problematic package for users (from Manjaro Team perspective, not the users, who didn’t want that package as well as linux-lts metapackage to be dropped).

I never understood why it was droped, I was using it and never had issues, as for users that don’t want that package simple don’t install it and let others have that option.

Maybe you can point me out to that discussion, seems I miss it.

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If someone spins a package I will happily open any issues I find. :upside_down_face:

I don’t find specific discussion but by searching for linux-latest and/or for linux-lts you could find Manjaro Team members who talk, after the fact, about why they dropped it. I can’t find discussion where I chimed in either on that topic, but I’m pretty sure I talked in favor of keeping these packages back then.

I don’t know, but I think there was posts from philm about it too, and myself too, but google or forum search doesn’t bring anything.

It’s still in stage when I can find issues easily by myself. Will roll out something usable "soon :tm: "

One of the two reasons I switched from Arch to Manjaro - and the primary reason I stay - is the fact that when you use a kernel - you stay on the kernel - you are not rolled from 5.14 to 5.15 to 5.16.

When you use Arch - you are forced to sync your kernel to the next release - there is no let’s see how this pan out and wait the storm out.

When you use linux515 on Manjaro you stay on linux515 until it dies of old age.

You can test linux516 or linux517 but you are not doomed if they fail.

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This is also the primary reason why I changed from arch to manjaro. As an example, I use kernel 5.10 on my laptop, but my desktop works better with 5.4.

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That was what I said, if a static kernel works better for you stick with that, however others having the option of a rolling kernel does not affect people that don’t use it in any way, saying that we don’t need it is just taking the option way from others that do.

Anyway this is more about the control panel and not a kernel dicussion, but adding extra code for something that can be fixed in the source for me is no-sense, but is always up to @LordTermor if he wants to listen to what I have to say or not.

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