Cockpit

[GreyGeek]

I was looking to see if a systemd gui had been recently updated and/or released, but found this older article describing all of the systemd gui packages available at the time. Seems nothing has changed since systemd-ui support was dropped.

It led me to two packages, both of which had to be downloaded from launchpad and installed in the following order:

sudo apt install ./systemd-ui_3-4_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./systemd-gui_3-4_all.deb

They produced this

The article listed one called Cockpit. It was browser based and reminded me of a browser based system tool I used years ago. Can't remember its name.

Anyway, cockpit version 215 is in the Neon repository so I installed it to give it a spin. I have one word for it: Awesome! It also does everything systemd-ui does and more. It is as close to the now unsupported kcmshell5 system gui as any I've seen so far.

[claydoh]

Cockpit actually comes from Ubuntu 20.04's repositories (like all non-Plasma stuff), which makes it pretty easy to grab a newer version from the ubuntu-backports component.:


sudo apt install -t focal-backports cockpit this gets you version 264, if you want it.

$ apt policy cockpit
cockpit:
 Installed: (none)
 Candidate: 215-1
 Version table:
    264-1~bpo20.04.1 100
       100 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports/universe amd64 Packages
       100 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports/universe i386 Packages
    215-1 500
       500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe amd64 Packages
       500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/universe i386 Packages

[oshunluvr]

Kind of a lot of depends, many unecessary IMO:

stuart@office:~$ sudo apt install -t focal-backports cockpit
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
Starting pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 0
Starting 2 pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 0
Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
 libllvm13 libllvm13:i386
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
 cockpit-bridge cockpit-networkmanager cockpit-packagekit cockpit-storaged cockpit-system cockpit-ws cracklib-runtime finalrd libblockdev-mdraid2 libbluetooth3
 libbytesize1 libcrack2 libndp0 libnm0 libpwquality-common libpwquality-tools libpwquality1 libteamdctl0 mdadm network-manager network-manager-pptp ppp pptp-linux
Suggested packages:
 cockpit-doc cockpit-pcp cockpit-sosreport udisks2-lvm2 sssd-dbus default-mta | mail-transport-agent dracut-core libteam-utils
The following NEW packages will be installed:
 cockpit cockpit-bridge cockpit-networkmanager cockpit-packagekit cockpit-storaged cockpit-system cockpit-ws cracklib-runtime finalrd libblockdev-mdraid2
 libbluetooth3 libbytesize1 libcrack2 libndp0 libnm0 libpwquality-common libpwquality-tools libpwquality1 libteamdctl0 mdadm network-manager network-manager-pptp
 ppp pptp-linux
0 upgraded, 24 newly installed, 0 to remove and 34 not upgraded.
Need to get 9,163 kB of archives.
After this operation, 21.0 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

I haven't used mdadm since btrfs, lol. Nor do I use network manager or have a modem.

[oshunluvr]

Nice look, though a little over-expanded/too much blank space IMO. For example, each mount occupies enough space for three lines of info but only uses one. I'd prefer tighter spacing. I'd rather not have to scroll.

I can see it would be a huge benefit to a less experienced user, like Webmin but for your local computer. It appears you could also use it for remote access (another system on your network). Neat.

[claydoh]

My deps (KDE neon) were shorter:

cockpit cockpit-bridge cockpit-networkmanager cockpit-packagekit cockpit-storaged cockpit-system cockpit-ws
 cracklib-runtime libcrack2 libpwquality-common libpwquality-tools libpwquality1

[oshunluvr]

Because I'm neater. I take out the trash like NM

[claydoh]

I don't have most of those extras installed at all, like libpwquality and libcrack2 etc.

[GreyGeek]

Cockpit actually comes from Ubuntu 20.04's repositories (like all non-Plasma stuff), which makes it pretty easy to grab a newer version from the ubuntu-backports component.:


sudo apt install -t focal-backports cockpit this gets you version 264, if you want it.
....

I saw that on an AskUbuntu answer and tried it.

Didn't work for me:

sudo apt install -t focal-backports cockpit
Reading package lists... Done
E: The value 'focal-backports' is invalid for APT::Default-Release as such a release is not available in the sources

I also tried adding

Package: *
Pin: release a=RELEASE-backports
Pin-Priority: 500

to /etc/apt/preferences.d/50-neon-ubuntu-release-upgrader but it didn't work either.
Neither did apt-get install cockpit/focal-backports
Gave me the same error.

Missing sauce? The line in sources.list.save that adds the focal-backports to the list of repositories. Then after the update the install of the 261 version proceeded nicely.

[oshunluvr]

I don't have most of those extras installed at all, like libpwquality and libcrack2 etc.

You're also probably on a laptop. @Here - desktop with static IP so most of the network tools are not needed and I'm OCD enough to bother to remove them.