User:Maffblaster/Gentoo ideas

This page lists various improvement ideas I have for Gentoo (as a distribution).

Portkey - Cool name for software.

Python Zen

Apport
Apport is program that catches crash dumps and renames them according to some qualifying parameters.


 * Homepage: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
 * Source: https://code.launchpad.net/~apport-hackers/apport/trunk
 * Releases: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/a/apport/

Also look into Whoopsie.

repo.presync.d/* hooks
Presently Portage has a hook directory in  for post-repository syncs. This enables custom scripts to act on various repositories after a sync. The primary purpose for scripts is to generate package metadata, which in turn speeds up Portage's operations.

Similarly, the directory could enable pre-sync hooks to be executed before Portage syncs the repositories. There may be little benefit to having this option, however some users may which to do things like "snapshot" the repository before syncing.

I guess the same thing could be done with a cron job or timer.

Options

 * Output ( ?) the packages in a set, display a count of the total installed packages in the set. Example:


 * This can presently be performed with :
 * This can presently be performed with :


 * Add a  option to verify the integrity of installed packages. The digests seem to already exist; Portage just needs to reference them. Would be similar to the  command from, but accepts sets/package atoms/globs. Examples:




 * Add a progress bar when using.

Better progress indicators

 * Progress bar for updates?

GPG integration
Currently system administrators have the option ( FEATURE ) of downloading the source tarball directly from upstream. If they have setup a binary package server (after setting USE defaults across the board). For upstream projects/developers who offer a GPG signed checksum, it would be of high quality and value to have Portage automatically ensure the tarball has not been compromised. This would probably be a new feature to include in a future EAPI release.

How much disk space should I estimate for Gentoo?
In a non-special case, if everything (except and ) is going to be mounted under  (root partition), I would recommend at least 120 GBs of space.

Special cases would be anything outside of desktop scope; mainly servers.

Userspace hardening

 * Disable udev (new device creation/management) when the screen is locked. This way devices that can harm the system cannot be created unless there is a known user at the keyboard.
 * If you have to replace/re-plug the keyboard you'll be in trouble, however it would avoid things like PoisonTap, which is a newer example of this.

Zorin OS
It would be nice to see Zorin OS shell themes available in Gentoo.

Subgraph OS
I might make use of the user space application firewall present in Subgraph OS.

oz looks pretty neat as well.

Virtual workspaces in VR
Get a VR headset. Get an open source display engine. Create a virtual workspace. Configure the display however you want. Display would forward windows directly to the canvas in VR. Could show as physical monitors in a virtual space, or as a 180 or 360 degree curved environment.

I imagine this will not be more useful until VR headsets attain higher resolution, since the primary mode in this case would be viewing text.

eclean improvements
should remove old items that are no longer listed in the main repo. It should at least ask if the user would like to clean them.