!!! Warning: Read this through to the end. These tools can be dangerous. !!!

Guidance 0.8.0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Simon Edwards <simon@simonzone.com>, Sebastian Kügler <sebas@vizzzion.org>
& Yuriy Kozlov <yuriy.kozlov@gmail.com>, Martin Böhm <martin.bohm@kubuntu.org>


Introduction
------------
Guidance is a collection of system administration tools for Linux/KDE systems
that is designed to be:

  * Update to date
  * High quality, designed with user friendliness as high priority. (That is
    to say that the tools should get the job done quickly, accurately and with
    as little effort as possible.)
  * Use KDE and "fit in" with KDE.
  * Maintainable. 
  * Free Software

  
Warning
-------
These tools often require root access and modify important system files in
order to do their job. There is a very real chance that these tools can
destroy your computer and your data. Backup your data! Also especially
backup up /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow and /etc/fstab. If you don't know what
I'm talking about now then you probably shouldn't try using Guidance yet.
You should have some idea how to fix 

We accept no responsibility in the event that something goes terribly wrong.
You have been warned.


Status
------
The tools that make up Guidance are in different stages of development and
have only been tested on Mandrake.

* userconfig - User & Group configuration. Supports /etc/passwd and
  /etc/shadow right now.
  
* serviceconfig - System services configuration utility. Feature complete.
  Works on Mandrake, Debian, (K)ubuntu Gentoo and maybe Red Hat out of the box.

* mountconfig - Mount point configuration utility. Feature complete and
  stable.

* displayconfig - Display and graphics card configuration utility. Feature
  complete but it only tested on Kubuntu right now.

* wineconfig - Wine configuration utility.

* grubconfig - Grub boot loader configuration utility. beta quality now.


Requirements
------------
* Linux.

* Python. 2.4 recommended. You probably already have Python installed, and if
  not then it will most definately be available for you distribution of choice.

* PyQt / PyKDE. Version 3.7 or higher. PyQt and PyKDE are distributed with
  KDE as part of kde-bindings since version 3.3. 
  
  For versions of KDE before 3.3 it is possible to install PyQt/PyKDE
  directly. The homepage for PyQt and PyKDE is:

    http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pykde/index.php
    
  Packages for most popular distributions are available here:
  
    http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=61057

* KDE 3.

* "PyKDE Extensions" is needed for installation. It is available here:
  http://www.simonzone.com/software/pykdeextensions/
  This is also a runtime requirement!

* libpythonize. If you don't want the tools to appear on the KDE Control
  Center of you just don't want to bother with libpythonize, then you can
  build Guidance with this command: 

    python setup.py install build_kcm --no-kcontrol

  libpythonize is only needed for the KDE Control Center. 

* You also need to have the development files from your X-server installed,
  XFree86 or Xorg. Most distributions package these files up in a package
  called XFree86-devel, or Xorg-devel, or libxorg-X11-devel or some similar.

* Specifically, the following packages are needed on Kubuntu:

    build-essential
    python-sip4-dev
    libxxf86vm-dev
    libxrender-dev
    libxrandr-dev
    libpythonize0-dev
    pyqt-tools
    libtool
    kde-devel


Installation
------------
As root run:

  ./setup.py install

This will test for a working installation of PyQt/PyKDE and automatically
install the files using the same installation prefix as KDE. You will need
to have a working Python install before you can even run the setup.py script.

displayconfig-hwprobe installation
----------------------------------
displayconfig-hwprobe.py is a small program that should be run at boottime
before Xorg is started. It scans the PCI bus looking for graphics cards and
compares the list it finds to the previous time it was run. If the two lists
of hardware are different then "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" is automatically
run in non-interactive mode to generate a new xorg.conf based on the new
hardware.

The philosophy is that it is better to have a system with a raw but working
xorg.conf and X server, than to keep the old configuration and a Xorg that
won't startup. Swapping a graphics card should not "break" the OS.

The setup.py script currently does not install displayconfig-hwprobe.py by
itself. For now this must be done by the packager. displayconfig-hwprobe.py
should be put in /etc/init.d and installed to run at boot time with a command
like this:

    update-rc.d displayconfig-hwprobe.py start 18 3 .

displayconfig-hwprobe.py only supports Kubuntu right now. Perhaps in the
future displayconfig-hwprobe will be expanded to detect hardware and generate
an xorg.conf by itself.

More information about displayconfig-hwprobe.py and the files it uses is
inside displayconfig-hwprobe.py. Currently the hardware data is written to
/var/lib/guidance/guidance-gfxhardware-snapshot. IMPORTANT: The directory
/var/lib/guidance/ should be created before using displayconfig-hwprobe.py.


Running
-------
Installation should add a couple of entries to the KDE Control Center in the
System section (displayconfig will show up in Peripherals). It is also possible 
to run the commands outside of the KDE Control Center from the shell as root:

  * serviceconfig
  * userconfig
  * mountconfig
  * displayconfig
  * wineconfig
  * grubconfig
  
Reporting Bugs
--------------
Bug reports and feedback can be sent to simon@simonzone.com . Do make sure
that say which version of Guidance you are using and also what Linux
distribution you are using, and also how you installed SIP, PyQt, PyKDE. Also
if any error messages are printing to the console, email those too. By
running these tools from the command line you can often get useful (to me)
debug information. That kind of information is valuable.


Deinstallation
--------------
As root run:

  ./setup.py uninstall

  
Thanks go to
------------
Jim Bublitz
David Boddie
Sebastian Kügler
Theo Houtman
Pete Andrews (gamma correction system)


-- 
Simon Edwards 
<simon@simonzone.com>