Re: update tray tool for Debian
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 01:28:34PM -0200, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote:
> Hello,
Hi,
> Some brazilians who work on the 'Debian-BR-CDD' effort talked to me
> about an update tray tool. I know you both are interested and working on
> such tools currently.
>
> Daniel Burrows is apt-watch's and aptitude's author. Michiel Sikkes and
> Michael Vogt wrote the tools which are being used by ubuntu. They can be
> found here:
>
> http://ftp.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/pool/main/u/update-manager/
> http://ftp.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/pool/main/u/update-notifier/
While apt-watch is a very nice gnome applet we (the ubuntu desktop
people) decided to go with a different approach. This some some
advantages and some drawbacks. Here is a brief overview how
update-notifier works:
update-notifier runs entirely as a user and can not do a "apt-get
update" on it's own (apt-watch can do it). This is done via the
"APT::Periodic::Update-Package-List" variable that was added recently
into apt (that setting triggers a nighly cron-job). It's a tray-icon
(not a applet) and displays a icon if updates are available (and hides
itself if not). It uses fam to check for changes in
/var/lib/apt/lists. It also makes apt write a
/var/lib/update-notifier/dpkg-run-stamp file when it's finished with a
dpkg run and monitors this as well. It's also pretty young code
(apt-watch seems to be more mature).
> Of course something that integrates well into synaptic and aptitude
> (smart, anyone? =)) would be very nice. Are you people considering
> joining efforts, or something? What way are we going on the 'update tray
> tool for Debian'?
Smart comes IIRC with it's own trayicon based code written in C++/Qt
(in contrib/). It's influenced by update-notifer because Gustavo and I
talked a bit about how such a application may look like.
About the integration: update-notifier should work with any apt based
tool.
> Is the ubuntu tool good enough for us?
Comments/Suggestions/Bugreports for the update-{notifier,manager}
stuff is welcome. I plan to package it for debian as well but haven't
had time for it yet.
bye,
Michael
--
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo
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