[Synaptic-devel] Newbie-friendly packagemanagement

[Alex de Landgraaf]

> No problem :) We are very open for feedback. But we like to get that
> feedback, so if someone if unhappy, we want to hear about it so that
> we can think about it to make synaptic better. 

Well, I didn't say I was unhappy with synaptic, it's great but suffers from the
complexity of 10000 packages :)

> While browsing the
> morphix website I noticed some talk about "yet another apt
> frontend". What do you plan here? I'm just curious, as I wrote above,
> we are always looking for new ideas :)

Well, by the looks of it, it would be part-webbased and part-gtkclient. I too
havn't
tried out Click&Run, but take a look on:
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_categories.php?sort=1&lang=en to get an
idea of what it is.

The directory of packages would be easily doable, using either a subset of
packages, debtags, or another kind of extra layer of information. I'm not sure
if you download using C&R packages using your browser and install them
(dependancy handling?), or if you download a script which launches a tool to
download the packages (and any dependancies necessary) itself. I've been
leaning
towards the second, but there are security issues involved, naturally. 

If it sounds interesting enough, we could start an alioth-project to see if it
would be doable to build something similar. If you think it would be a waste of
time, I'll place it somewhere on the todo list and look at it again in a few
months :)

> I haven't seen "Click&Run" in action and know little about the
> concept. I guess it's a good thing if it's easy to use. But do does
> lindows handle package upgrade (like security stuff)? 

Not sure. Then again, it's Lindows, I don't believe security is one of their
concerns. Do they still run everything as root? :)

> Or the removal
> of packages? IMHO you always need basic package management
> capabilities (stuff like dependency handling comes also into my
> mind). How do they present this kind of stuff?

Again I'm not sure. You're right that basic packagemanagement would always be
necessary. Maybe a new view in synaptic (with only the subset of packages)
would
be a way. Think I'll have to find some cash to actually buy a Lindows cd to be
sure, all in the name of healthy free-software competition...

> Lowering the threshold is always a good idea :) How far are is morphix
> with adding this kind of infrastructure (again just curious)?

We've only been discussing it, nothing more. We're not a large group of
developers (5/6 people activly helping me out, mostly people with their own
derivatives), so you don't have to expect miracles. Not yet, atleast
*insertworlddominationplothere* :)

> If you have suggestions or ideas how to make synaptic easier for the
> average user (aunt tilly) don't hesitate to tell us. We where thinking
> about a special "upgrade druid" with limited choices to install
> (security) upgrades or make dist-upgrades. But this is not quite the
> click&run idea :)

Well, that might be the second part of the story. An easy way to install
packages, and an easy way to grab the latest upgrades. Would make a nice
combination.

> BTW, I wasn't aware of morphix. It looks very nice (haven't tested it
> though, I only have a isdn link, so downloading a iso takes a bit
> longer :)

If you want, I could send you a cd (current version is a few weeks old, but the
Gnome-version is pretty nice). See it as a thanks for your work on synaptic,
it's been getting some nice improvements since Conectiva stopped offical
development on it...

Cheers,

Alex