Universal Select Tool

*Abstract

Universal Select Tool is an utility to manage system configuration.
This tool is similar to the unmaintained eselect utility of Gentoo or
Exherbo's eclectic. The idea is to create a tool that  manages both
system settings and user settings with profile creation possibilities.
The utility will use mostly concepts from "modules", "softenv", and
both "eselect" and "eclectic".

*Objective

The objective of this project is to create a unified configuration
utility for gentoo. Why this new tool and not eselect? Gentoo has a
set of configuration utilities (eselect-* *-config) that work with
global environment settings regarding the system and therefore needed
to be contradicted by hand by users to fulfill their need to change
it's own defaults. This is a common problem within clusters,
shared-servers, etc, basically all multi-user, multi-profile,
multi-use environments. Creating this utility makes environment
profiles, slots, virtuals and multi-implementations easier to manage,
create and manipulate by developers, sysadmins and users. The current
available solutions do not work this way and therefore enlarging the
gap between configuration unification, profiling and usability.

*General Ideas

Some modules that this project wants to unite do much more than just
update environment variables. Further discussion should be done with
all participants in such projects to check if a general tool can be
created and if not, what can be split as a module and what can not.
Modules will need to be thought in a way that no further *-config and
eselect-* utilities need to exist anymore. These utilities will be
replaced by a module of it's own that allows the universal select tool
to manipulate all available configuration that is specified by the
module.
Modules will not only specify to the universal select tool what can be
changed but also how to make those changes.
Modules will be indexed in it's own database file for faster
searching, switching, and profile creation and managing. This database
will need to be updated by portage upon each successful module-able
emerge.

*Key features

Merging all eselect-* and *-config modules into one unified framework.
Quick and easy plugin of new modules when a virtual or several slots
of one package exist to allow modul-ization of several packages.
Fast.
Per-User and Per-System module settings.
Create profiles of module settings, Per-User and Per-System.
Possible new modules: mysql, tex, intel compiler suite, fortran, etc.

*Deliverables

an application (probably uselect) and the corresponding ebuild
documentation
module examples
ebuild examples
patch to portage (possibly)

Programming language is yet to be defined but possibly python, bash or C.

*Timeline

April 20 - May 23

Get to know code/documentation/use of "modules", "softenv", "eselect",
"ecletic" and "portage".
Highlight base features and algorithms to reimplement/discard.
Make decisions regarding the base of the aplication such as databases,
module format/handling, dependencies in portage and user environment
handling.
Set up a gentoo virtual machine that can be replicated to use as clean
sandboxes for testing througout the development with various
environments.

May 23 - July 3

Choose and setup the build environment for the new utility.
Begin implementation of the base features and module system.
Create sample modules.

(Mid Milestone) July 4 - July 30

Retouch wathever is needed.
Implement Portage's module handling part.
Create sample ebuild.

(Final Milestone) August 1 - August 17

Tests
Re-touching
Documentation

*Biography

My name is Sérgio Almeida and I live in Lisbon, Portugal. I am 22
years old and Informatics have always been my interest since I first
got in touch with a friend's Comodore. I study informatics & computers
science engineering @ Instituto Superior Técnico and plan to get my
MsC degree in 2012. My main interests are distributed systems and
computer/network security. I started working as a sysadmin at the age
of 16 at VirtualGames, a game server provider for fun and without any
profit. I am currently working as sysadmin at my University's Physics
Investigation department. Besides this i play bass in a rock band,
«don't disturb my circles» and I enjoy listening, composing, recording
and mixing music.