commands from shadow package

[Harald Becker]

Hi Rob!
> Just a cautionary note...
>   
Fairly true this note. I do need between 2 or 3 hours to create a
specific busybox configuration. Just to give a real example.

... but how else would you have a system which is up-/down scalable for
the experts? How else could you go further with busybox and allow others
to select what they really like to include into there box?

What about creating standard usage profiles and separating configuration
options ...

... in those needed to be changed by the average users which select
defaults for the expert configurations by choosing a standard usage profile

... and the rest of the options (maybe increasing even more) goes to be
used within those profiles.

So every expert can chose the usage profile which goes closest to his
need and than he can dig into the details. Where novices to busybox (I
think that will be the majority) stay just at the top level, selecting
there desired usage profile and change only some of the required options
from an oversee-able list (which should even provide very detailed help
information).

The number of profiles shouldn't be limited, which would allow the
creation of more specific profiles by experts and contributed to the
main project. Additionally administrators my set up specialized profiles
on there site and add those to the busybox configuration locally.
Optionally there could be a web or download side with a bigger list of
such usage profiles. That way you do only need to decide which usage
profiles go to the main project and which may go to the contribution
download side or are to special to be included. With an increasing
number of contributed usage profiles even novices can select one and
such up- or down scale there box without digging into too much
configuration.

Just brainstorm: To keep this usable for the developers I suggest (but
incompletely) the extension of the configuration format with a usage
statement giving keywords from a predefined but extend-able list.
Profiles may select default settings for this configuration based on
there definition and the usage keywords provided by the individual option.

What do you, what do others think about this?

Harald