UPDATE: There is a mailing list dedicated to kamion development at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/kamion2-devel if you want to join the discussions…

Unfortunately, it is not joyful to work on the Kamion anymore. Mainly because of the lack of feedback from the developers community… read on:

For those who [still] do not know what Kamion is, here’s a definition from the webpage:

Simple description: Kamion is a user-friendly user state migration and backup tool created for KDE 4. Meaning – it allows even the most inexperienced user to transfer program related data such as e-mail messages, IM program history as well as the configuration of those programs from one computer to another. It can be used for backup purposes too.

The name Kamion means “The Truck” (see the logo) in my mother tongue (Serbian language).

Longer description: Kamion is a project consisted of the library named libKamion, graphical user interface for QT4/KDE4, and a few console tools. This organization is similar to the one of the Debian’s APT (Advanced Packaging Tool).

The library manages the database about the location of the application data (such as e-mail messages from KMail of Thunderbird…) for each supported application; and creates/restores the Kamion archives.

The GUI represents that database (list of applications and their resources) in a user-friendly manner allowing easy creation and restoration of the data. For those that do not have the ability to run the GUI, there are console based tools that offer the same functions as the GUI but without the user-friendliness.

Things that are finished:

• libKamion – in working state
• KDE4 GUI – in working state
• console tools – broken
• Gnome GUI – not started

Things that need to be worked on

• Program support – I have almost no marketing abilities and no will to do the marketing. Kamion itself can not know what files to archive for a specific application. The application developers need to provide Kamion XML data files. I tried to push this format to the FreeDesktop but received no feedback whatsoever (although information needed by Kamion could be used for automatic creating of AppArmor/SELinux policies as well, and possibly for more things that I can not foresee at the moment). This is the main thing that needs to be done.
• I18n support in the library – the application’s resources are not supported to have internationalized names. It could be done as a part of the GUI, or as a part of the library
• mature and move from playground

I will gladly help anyone willing to take this task – explain the program and library architecture, explain the kamion archive format, application data XML file format…

If you’re willing to take on the job, put your e-mail address in the comment (in bla AT bla DOT bla format, or similar)

U poslednjem broju Linux Format Magazina, moje čedo, Kamion, je predstavljen na 4 strane (strana 56).

Moja zahvalnica ide piscu (Nathan Sanders) i Linux Format uredništvu koje mi je poslalo besplatnu kopiju LXF-a.

Čak su stavili i strip posvećen Kamionu!

p.s. Časopis je odličan. Za one koji imaju kinte da se pretplate, toplo preporučujem.

In the last issue of the Linux Format Magazine, there is a 4 page review of Kamion user-state migration tool (page 56).

I would like to thank Nathan Sanders for writing it, and the LXF for sending me a free (as in beer) copy of it.

There is even a comic that mentions Kamion. Nice!

These past few days had been good for Kamion.

The code for extracting the archives has been rewritten from scratch and comitted to the KDE‘s SVN. The library now supports adding shell wildcards for resource definition in the XML configuration files. (version of the library is 0.9.2)

The Kamion GUI news

The GUI is almost complete and ready for testing (well, it will be when I put the testing XML configuration files somewhere where you can get them from).

The main visible change is the new confirmation and finalization steps. Unfortunately, the QT’s support for HTML is low so the looks are not as fancy as I wanted them to be, but I’m satisfied. You can see them in the screenshots:

More screenshots…

And for the end of this post I would like to thank you all for being interested in this project. Special thanks to Nathan Sanders who has been monitoring this project since the beginning. Cheers!

In a pause between two sessions of exam preparing, I downloaded the Oxygen iconset from the KDE‘s SVN and chose new icons for Kamion‘s buttons and gui.

And there are some small changes to the code concerning the exception handling in the kamion-gui part.

Well, today I have found out that Kamion’s desktop file at the KDE SVN was translated… localized to a couple of different languages. (This is my first time) Thanks!

Well, now I’ve got the approval from the Sourceforge crew (thanks), so the new location for the Kamion is almost set. The address is http://kamion2.sourceforge.net/

Not everything is set up (to be honest, most of the things are not set up yet), but the missing pages will be finished in a couple of weeks.

Kamion is a “user state migration and backup tool”. Meaning – it allows the user to transfer program related data such as e-mail messages, IM program history as well as the configuration of those programs from one computer to another. It can be used for backup purposes too.

The project is separated into two parts – the library that does the work and the GUI written for QT4/KDE4.

More info at the old development blog: http://alas.matf.bg.ac.yu/~mr02014/english/
That page is no longer updated. I’m waiting for the sourceforge project approval to set the main web page for the Kamion there.

Screenshots:

Kamion is uploaded to the KDE SVN and is located at /trunk/playground/utils/kamion