DDU GUI Specification

Disk Driver Utility "Missing Drivers" UI Specification

Contents:

IntroductionTarget Users

UI Design
Text-based DDU UI
Desktop DDU GUI

Introduction

The DDU "Missing Drivers" application is designed to inform users about devices on a machine that are missing drivers prior to the installation of OpenSolaris, and to give them an opportunity to install the missing drivers prior to the installation. While the "regular" DDU can be used to install drivers following installation and rebooting into the installed system, some critical drivers may be needed inorder to install OpenSolaris.

The current standard form of the GUI DDU does not allow for the installation of drivers other than those whose location is known to the DDU (in the DDU database). Updating the DDU to allow for the installation of drivers from media and the net will extend its utility. The "missing drivers" functionality will be incorporated into the regular GUI DDU rather than creating a separate "missing drivers" application.

The functional spec for this project is at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/caiman/Driver_Update/du-func-spec.txt

Target Users

The target users for the DDU Missing Drivers utility are individuals wishing to install on hardware using the standard installers. The standard installers are on CD media which have limited space and so some drivers may not have been included on the media. Other drivers may not be freely redistributable and so cannot be included on the installation CD. In these situations and others, the user will need to visit non-OpenSolaris repositories and websites to retrieve and install the missing drivers. The DDU's "missing drivers" functionality is the mechanism that simplifies this operation.

UI Design

The DDU has two forms, a desktop-based GUI designed for use on the OpenSolaris LiveCD and the GNOME desktop, and an nCurses text-based interface for use with the text-based installer. The two UIs use the same basic design, however the nCurses-based version is designed to be used only at installation time while the desktop version is used both prior to installation and following installation to review driver status and to apply driver updates.

The two designs are described separately below.

The Text-based DDU UI

The text-based DDU "Missing Drivers" is delivered on the Caiman text-based Installer media. The media boots up into a short menu that allows the user to run the installer, DDU, a shell, etc. Unlike the LiveCD which automatically runs the DDU in the background and notifies the user of missing drivers, the user must manually run DDU on the text-based installer media to determine whether there are missing drivers. When a user invokes the DDU, the following nCurses-based screen appears.

The screen lists the devices with missing drivers and has fields for the user to specify the source location of the drivers from which the drivers are to be installed. The basic flow is that users select a missing device, indicates the location of the missing driver package, installs it, and repeats until the user has installed all the desired device drivers. It is not absolutely necessary that the user first select a device, but doing so allows the DDU to automatically fill the driver location fields if it has the information.

The user selects a device using the up/down-arrows to highlight a device, and then types "x" or presses the spacebar or ENTER key to select the device. When a device is selected, the highlight/focus is automatically advanced to the Pathname/URL field, or the top-most field auto-filled by the DDU if any. The user can also use the down-arrow to move the highlight down from the last device to the Pathname/URL field, or the up-arrow to return to the last device in the list.

If there are more than four missing drivers, the screen lists the first four and displays a "scrollbar" to the left of the device list. The list automatically scrolls when top/bottom visible entry is highlighted and the user presses the up/down-arrow respectively.

When a device is selected, if the DDU has any information about the name and location of the missing device driver packages, that information is displayed in Pathname, Repository, and Package fields as appropriate, and the top-most non-empty field is selected in case the user wants to change what the DDU has provided. If the DDU has no information about the missing device driver, the top-most empty field, Pathname/URL, is selected so that the user can more easily enter the driver package location information.

If the information held by the DDU is a link to a web page rather than an actual driver file, the link is placed in the Status line - the last line of the content area, just above the F-key commands. In this event the selection moves to the Pathname/URL field.

The user can enter the location and name of the driver to be installed by specifying a Pathname to a driver package file on locally mounted media, a URL to a driver file to be accessed over the internet, or the URL of an IPS repository and the name of a driver package on that repository. The user can use F5 to cycle through the repositories known to the system on the installation media.

Once the user has entered the location of a driver and pressed F2, the DDU will attempt to install the specified driver(s). The status line should display "Downloading <name>", "Installing <name>", "Installation failed: <name>, <name>..." as appropriate. Note that the installed driver(s) may not match the selected device.

 When the F2 action has completed, the list of devices should be updated to remove the devices that now have drivers and show only those still missing drivers, the top-most device in the list should be highlighted, and the lower fields cleared. If installation of any driver failed, the selected device should remain selected if its driver was not successfully installed and the lower locations fields should remain unchanged.

Locating Drivers on Media

When media is inserted into the machine by the user, the user can either enter the driver pathname information directly or use the F4 key to display the "Browse Files" screen below. When the screen is displayed it lists the "/media" directory and all of the mounted media within it. As the user walks down the directory hierarchy, each level is indented two additional spaces to the right.

The user selects a driver file by walking down the directory hierarchy highlighting the next level parent directory using the up/down-arrows and pressing ENTER. When the user presses ENTER, the sibling entries are removed from the display, the selected item moved up under its parent, and its offspring listed below it, indented two spaces. The selected item remains highlighted. When the desired level has been reached the user presses F2 to return to the DDU screen. The selected path is automatically entered into the Pathname field. Note that the user does not need to walk the directory hirearchy to a file at the bottom. If the last user action was to select a directory that contains, say SVR4 packages, the resulting pathname will end with a ".../*" and all packages within the selected directory will be installed should the user subsequently press F2 on the DDU screen.

Although media are automatically unmounted when the user physically removes the media, the CD/DVD eject button may not be functional. In that case, the CD/DVD can be selected on this screen and F5 used to eject the media. It maybe necessary for the user to select the "/media" at the top of the list in order to display the entry for the CD/DVD to be unmounted.

The Desktop DDU GUI

The DDU is silently run on when the LiveCD desktop starts up. If it finds devices that are missing drivers a notification (shown below) is posted. The DDU will silently and automatically begin loading any drivers that are available in the default repo, usually the opensolaris release repo.

Clicking on the notification will display the DDU window. This window can also be opened from the desktop DDU icon and the Applications>System>DDU menu.

The Missing Drivers table lists all devices on the machine. The devices with missing drivers are highlighted in light red until the driver has been installed.

The devices that have drivers being automatically installed from the default repo have the word "installing..." in the Driver column. When the installation of each of the automatically installed drivers completes, its name is displayed in Driver column for the appropriate device(s).

If the DDU catalog has links to third-party drivers the links are listed in the Driver column:.

• An IPS package in a third party repo displays as "IPS" in the Driver column (the package name is not displayed in order to avoid confusion with drivers that have already been installed) and, when the driver is selected, the package name and repo are shown in the Package field and repo drop-down.
• A SVR4 package, DU image, or p5i link at a third party web site displays as its respective type (SVR4, DU) in the Driver column. Selecting the device displays its URL in the File/URL field.
• If Info or source links are available, they are added to the Driver column as actual "Info" and/or "Souce" clickable link.

Basic operation

The user begins by selecting a device. If the DDU database has information about the location of a package/DU image the Package/File fields are set to the catalog values as appropriate:

• IPS: The package name is placed in the Package field and the repo information is placed in the repo drop-down (as if the user had manually added the repo to the list).
• SVR4/DU: The URL or path to the package/image including the package/image filename is placed in the File/URL field.
• The corresponding radio button is activated.
• The entries can be edited prior to the user clicking install; entry edits are temporary and not saved if the user selects another device then reselects the earlier (edited) package info (to avoid the need for an additional Reset button.)

If the device does not have a package entry in the DDU catalog, the current repo (in the repo drop-down) is automatically searched for a package using the device manufacturer and device type info. If a package is found the package name is automatically entered in the Package field.

Whenever the user changes the repo drop-down or selects a new device, a search is performed if there is no catalog entry or prior search. (The set of repo entries is established by the publishers defined for the booted system). The last entry in the drop-down is "Add repository..." which displays a dialog to add additional repos to the drop-down (TBD). After verifying a repo at the given URL, the new entry is automatically displayed after it is added.

If the Package/File/URL fields remain empty the user can type in the name of a package into the Package field or a pathname or URL into the File/URL field. Typing into one of these fields automatically sets the corresponding radio button.

The install button is enabled when there is a value in the field adjacent to the active radio button. When the user clicks the install button, a progress dialog is displayed (TBD). When the installation completes the name of the driver is displayed in the "Driver" column for that device. Note that the driver actually installed may not be for the selected device. The driver will be installed, but an informational dialog should be displayed when installation is completed with the following message:

The driver that was installed does not support the selected device.

Also note that a newly installed driver might support multiple devices or an "*" in a pathname might cause multiple drivers to be installed. In this event the Driver column entries for all devices that actually receive drivers should be updated with their new driver's name.

The user can right-click on a device to pop-up a context menu. It has one item, "Show details" which opens a details window identical to the one opened by the DDU application.

If the user selects a device which has had a driver installed, thePackage/File/URL fields below display the package name/file name/URL used to install the driver. If the driver was already installed when the DDU was started the fields are empty.