feature requests

[trw3937]

This thread could use another user/admin viewpoint

1) Greyhole: I am one that doesn't want/need greyhole on by default. It's best for keeping am7 clean and mean. I also agree those that would use it would/should have the tech chops to get it installed pretty easily. Making it an app sounds best. For those coming from WHS....not every WHS user used drivepool/extender. It was dropped in 2011v2 also.

2) Updating: The OP doesn't really understand the massive changes that occur in distro pkgs and config files and the platform changes that amahi went through from am6 to am7. Thinking an upgrade from fed 14 to fed 19 is possible is kind of ludicrous. He should ask in a fed forum that question. It would become clear to him fast there. Here we try to be polite.

3) Apps: This is best left to amahi mgmt. They know what demand for apps is happening and I trust them to get the main ones out asap.
That said I highly disagree with cpg building some mobile amahi app lately. I would have thought he'd work on server apps first. Oh well.
This distro isn't about getting mgmt to give me all I want but what's best for the majority of it's users. I want it to be a good home server first then I want it to be a public web app server. I had to give up on the latter happening. I don't think cpg or others? care about that. Theres lots of linux web servers like turnkey for that I found. But....I still want it on am7 dangit. How hard would it be? Arrrrgh

4) VPN: I would like to see it work just like in am6 fed14. It just works. If bridging is wanted thats a wiki how to issue. VPN is very slow for most users because of home ISP crap upload speeds. To bridge that slow of a connection for me made no sense. I use it to move small stuff back n forth to my other amahi server sites not to link wan site to site which is what brdging is usually used for. If you have a T-1 I could see it.

So am7 is a nice fast running refresh of am6 and in time it should be as usable. I like that it is update-able. That was my beef with F14.

[arthurdent4242]

It's not so much that we didn't try to get the most popular apps ready. Many of them are needing additional work that was not anticipated. We are trying to work through the issues and get them released.

Good to know, thank you for the information .

I am not saying that the way it works with Amahi is the way all VPNs work. Just was pointing out that our main goal of the VPN app is to connect to the HDA, not so much other machines in the network. That is a bonus once we get it sorted out in my opinion.

Noted.

No estimate yet as we only have one developer. Once we have an estimate, it will be posted.

This is what I fear, while I can understand and respect the fact that you guys are busy, it seems like this has been made a lower priority. This may not be the case, it could just be my interpretation, but when I see an announcement like "check out the solitare app, it now works with A7!" (this is just an example to illustrate a point, I have seen no announcements about solitare) and nothing about one of the core *advertised* features of the product it seems like the priorities are out of wack. Again, I understand, respect and appreciate the fact that you guys are few and super busy, but could you shed more light on this thought process?

I believe this was an executive decision. We are trying to remove things from the platform and make them apps, such as VPN. It used to be integrated. The intent is to give users the choice. Some don't want VPN or Greyhole, but I understand there are many who do.

Please be honest, is this to monetize them? If you look, both VPN apps cost money. You indicated that they used to be integrated (read: free). I don't have a problem with purchasing apps (I have purchased quite a few already), but I would again like to have some insight here.

My intent was that most users have the technical knowledge to get it working. What would be beneficial is to update the wiki with all the steps. The initial part is already there, just need to add a bit more on how to update the config file.
https://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Amahi_ ... n#Greyhole

True to some extent. Many of the wiki entries have not been updated for quite some time now (as you have indicated). This can generate questions as newer, more streamlined processes crop up. I hear what you are saying and I know that I could copy over my smb.conf, greyhole.conf and fstab to a new system. For example, pointing someone at this: https://github.com/gboudreau/Greyhole/w ... toragePool when they are migrating from 6 to 7 would be far more helpful than what is listed on the wiki.

Not sure if there will be one anytime soon. It depends on the availability of the Amahi Ubuntu developer. We will have to wait and see when the next LTS release comes out.

Fair enough. I know you guys started as a Fedora base and Ubuntu seemed to be more of a community driven thing. Again, we (both myself and probably all of the other users here) really appreciate what you guys are doing! Being able to have an open dialog with the developers of the software in question is what makes open-source great!

I understand, was just making sure to manage expectations. Some do not realize who is behind Amahi and why it takes us so long to get things done.

Thanks!

You are in the right place, it's just not as straight forward as it should be. Once logged in, go to Projects, Then choose Platform or Apps depending on your desire. You should see the
New Issue option.

I will give it a go.

Thanks for the feedback and we will get there eventually. Unfortunately, all good things take time

Thank you for holding the open dialog with me about this .

[arthurdent4242]

This thread could use another user/admin viewpoint

1) Greyhole: I am one that doesn't want/need greyhole on by default. It's best for keeping am7 clean and mean. I also agree those that would use it would/should have the tech chops to get it installed pretty easily. Making it an app sounds best. For those coming from WHS....not every WHS user used drivepool/extender. It was dropped in 2011v2 also.

M$ dropped it for different reasons. They believed their reworking of DE wasn't technically ready. While not everyone may have used it in WHSv1, the option was there. They removed it from v2 and claimed it is what all of their users wanted, however you can see just how large of a backlash there was after that and that is my point here, M$ made an executive decision to remove a feature that worked well (by PP3) and was much loved by many, but did not require you use it and it seems the same thing has happened with Amahi 7. I don't disagree that making it an app is a good idea as, like you said, you do not use it and may not have a need for it. But of the 60,000+ users which is the minority? This is why I asked about the poll.

2) Updating: The OP doesn't really understand the massive changes that occur in distro pkgs and config files and the platform changes that amahi went through from am6 to am7. Thinking an upgrade from fed 14 to fed 19 is possible is kind of ludicrous. He should ask in a fed forum that question. It would become clear to him fast there. Here we try to be polite.

You are right, I don't and I indicated that. As I don't really use Fedora I am not sure how their upgrade process is. I did use Fedora 18 on my laptop for a while and updated to 19 after it came out and it basically broke everything. So much so that I just nuked the installation. Obviously this would not be what we would want to happen to Amahi users, perhaps switching to a rolling release model (I know the technical challenges there are great)?

3) Apps: This is best left to amahi mgmt. They know what demand for apps is happening and I trust them to get the main ones out asap.
That said I highly disagree with cpg building some mobile amahi app lately. I would have thought he'd work on server apps first. Oh well.
This distro isn't about getting mgmt to give me all I want but what's best for the majority of it's users. I want it to be a good home server first then I want it to be a public web app server. I had to give up on the latter happening. I don't think cpg or others? care about that. Theres lots of linux web servers like turnkey for that I found. But....I still want it on am7 dangit. How hard would it be? Arrrrgh

This is why I am glad Bigfoot is here responding to my comments. Having the open dialog is a good thing. The 'main' apps is subjective. What is main to me is clearly not main to you. That is why I had suggested going for the top 10 most downloaded, or something along those lines. As the top 10 most downloaded apps would be something that most users want (not just what I want), I think this would be the best approach. Again, they may already be doing this. And if the top 10 are the ones that are already out, I stand corrected.

I have not heard about this mobile app thing, where have you seen info on that?

4) VPN: I would like to see it work just like in am6 fed14. It just works. If bridging is wanted thats a wiki how to issue. VPN is very slow for most users because of home ISP crap upload speeds. To bridge that slow of a connection for me made no sense. I use it to move small stuff back n forth to my other amahi server sites not to link wan site to site which is what brdging is usually used for. If you have a T-1 I could see it.

Having not used am6 on fed14 (using am6 on ubuntu 12.04) I can't comment. I don't know if it was using OpenVPN or the IPSec setup. The problem with the wiki entry is that it does not appear to have been updated since 2011 and it was written with fedora in mind. While most things should translate over, they may not always do so. Just having a look at the bridging instructions on the OpenVPN site vs the wiki you can see some differences. At that point, which becomes "correct"? While bridging may not make sense to you because of your internet speeds, it may make sense for me because of my internet speeds. TBH I am not sure why I can't connect to the IPSec VPN from a Linux client (it is a client side issue that I have been trying to get support for over at the ubuntu forums, but no one has an answer to). If I could connect to the IPSec tunnel from a linux client my issue with bridging would be solved because the IPSec tunnel lets me access other clients on the remote LAN. The alternative is to bridge the OpenVPN tunnel, which I tried and it broke networking (followed the instructions to the letter. read them about 10 times before I even tried it). This is where I start to wonder about the age of the instructions.

[bigfoot65]

To clarify, most guidance in the wiki is contributed by the user community not the Amahi staff.

That is why some guidance has become outdated. If users don't update it, it becomes stagnant.

We rely heavily on the community for this so we can focus on other things.

Hopefully someone will be able to update these types of guidance to help others such as yourself.

[ Post made via Android ]

[cpg]

We have been taking things out of the platform to make it easier to update and manage over time, even if it means the apps and plugins become second to the platform. We had a wiki built in originally!

There is incentive to add apps just because they are managed separately. There is also incentive if they can be a source of revenue for Amahi. It just makes sense in several fronts.

Amahi does not pay me as full-time lead developer or other developers or people in the community. We derive income from apps and premium plans (plus a tiny amount on ads displayed here in the forums). We have enough to pay hosting, backup, machine, domains, aws, taxes, and other bills. Then we also occasionally buy equipment. There is nowhere near enough for a salary for me, let alone other developers.

We occasionally hire developers, e.g. to re-do our web site front end, or a new logo. We also hired someone to help with the port of the platform to Amahi 7 (to a recent rails and also ruby platform). To give you an idea, re-doing the front-end (html, css, icons, passing validation, etc.) is about $2500. Porting the platform was well over $5000, with tabs being about $700 per tab. The Greyhole UI being a very complex area that has to work, it will have to be done with care and understanding what's behind, which takes time. it will probably be upwards of $3000. That does not count for my time developing the core of the platform, the installer, repos, testing, marketing, releases, etc. etc. etc.

As for the bug tracker, it was updated a couple of months ago, and I have a feeling it may need now some permission for new users to the bug tracker to be added to a group (developer, reporter, manager, ..) before they can file bugs. Maybe there is a setting to allow anyone logged in to add an issue. Did not take a look yet. There is an item, somewhere in the list of things within a project called "New Issue" ... but it's not distinguished from other options, so maybe it's hard to spot. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/364883/Screensh ... -issue.png

In any case, it's the way it works, people pay a little each and we try to make the best we can. There is nothing more we would like more than getting things done faster and get more users. If it were's for the efforts of the community and outstanding members like bigfoot65, Amahi would not be where it is. Your support is appreciated!

Hope this helps clarify some things. I probably missed others.

[cpg]

Incidentally, the vast majority of what we do is open source. So it's not like we're preventing anyone to install any apps. You can go to the source and install them yourself.

Also, the Greyhole UI plugin was started a while ago, but then we got into other things.

Anyone with a little bit of Ruby and Ruby on Rails knowledge can fork that repo and help out by submitting pull requests, test, etc.

[arthurdent4242]

To clarify, most guidance in the wiki is contributed by the user community not the Amahi staff.

That is why some guidance has become outdated. If users don't update it, it becomes stagnant.

We rely heavily on the community for this so we can focus on other things.

Hopefully someone will be able to update these types of guidance to help others such as yourself.

[ Post made via Android ]

Good to know. What I am seeing on the wiki pages it looks like I need to create another account to be able to edit entries, correct?

[arthurdent4242]

We have been taking things out of the platform to make it easier to update and manage over time, even if it means the apps and plugins become second to the platform. We had a wiki built in originally!

There is incentive to add apps just because they are managed separately. There is also incentive if they can be a source of revenue for Amahi. It just makes sense in several fronts.

Amahi does not pay me as full-time lead developer or other developers or people in the community. We derive income from apps and premium plans (plus a tiny amount on ads displayed here in the forums). We have enough to pay hosting, backup, machine, domains, aws, taxes, and other bills. Then we also occasionally buy equipment. There is nowhere near enough for a salary for me, let alone other developers.

We occasionally hire developers, e.g. to re-do our web site front end, or a new logo. We also hired someone to help with the port of the platform to Amahi 7 (to a recent rails and also ruby platform). To give you an idea, re-doing the front-end (html, css, icons, passing validation, etc.) is about $2500. Porting the platform was well over $5000, with tabs being about $700 per tab. The Greyhole UI being a very complex area that has to work, it will have to be done with care and understanding what's behind, which takes time. it will probably be upwards of $3000. That does not count for my time developing the core of the platform, the installer, repos, testing, marketing, releases, etc. etc. etc.

As for the bug tracker, it was updated a couple of months ago, and I have a feeling it may need now some permission for new users to the bug tracker to be added to a group (developer, reporter, manager, ..) before they can file bugs. Maybe there is a setting to allow anyone logged in to add an issue. Did not take a look yet. There is an item, somewhere in the list of things within a project called "New Issue" ... but it's not distinguished from other options, so maybe it's hard to spot. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/364883/Screensh ... -issue.png

In any case, it's the way it works, people pay a little each and we try to make the best we can. There is nothing more we would like more than getting things done faster and get more users. If it were's for the efforts of the community and outstanding members like bigfoot65, Amahi would not be where it is. Your support is appreciated!

Hope this helps clarify some things. I probably missed others.

CPG, it does. And again, my intention is not to down-play at all what you guys do I really do thank you guys and wish I had the programming skills to help you guys out. Amahi is a great product and what I love about open-source in general is being able to have a direct line of communication with the devs. I know that this is done in your spare time and like I said, I don't mind paying for certain apps to support something that I have recommended to a ton of people (I even got you guys a mention on tekzilla ;D).

[arthurdent4242]

Incidentally, the vast majority of what we do is open source. So it's not like we're preventing anyone to install any apps. You can go to the source and install them yourself.

Also, the Greyhole UI plugin was started a while ago, but then we got into other things.

Anyone with a little bit of Ruby and Ruby on Rails knowledge can fork that repo and help out by submitting pull requests, test, etc.

I don't know if it recently changed (I haven't checked the history) or if I just glossed over it before, but I just noticed that the webapps wiki has a screencast of someone installing an app. I may try it out for a few things.

Wish I had the RoR knowledge, but alas, I don't. So I can just wait for the GH app .

[wjtatamahi]

First of all,I wasn't to thank the developers of Amahi. I thought whs2011 was going to be my only option for what I wanted to do. Amahi is great and proved me wrong - a couple of times. I had my doubts about using the DNS and dhcp servers exclusively on my network but once I gave in I was pleasantly surprised and discovered they work fine. You guys have done such a remarkable job with something you offer to the community at no cost I almost feel guilty for putting in a request. But here goes:

I noticed there is no way of changing the number of IPs or the range of IPs the machine leases out. Can this change in future versions of Amahi? Being able to control this just offers another level of security that I had with any of my routers.

Thank you.

[ Post made via Android ]