Re: Easy third-party package installer for debian-based distributions

[Sami Dalouche <skoobi@free.fr>]

Hi,

Sorry for being concerned with usability issues (hence average joe) while
dealing with the way debian works. I guess that only ubuntu-devel was
interested by this message then.

I am not claiming that synaptic is hard to use, (it can even be easier in some
use cases), I am just claiming that adding a third party repository can be
difficult for a newcomer, and my post was about trying to find an acceptable
solution to this problem.

And yes, maybe third party are not competent enough to provide decent packages.
but if we don't even provide a framework they can build upon, they are never
going to use it...

So, as a summary :
- apt-get & dpkg solutions don't fulfill all the requirements :

1) Does not subscribe to future updates
2) Does not allow the third party entity to provide several packages

- some people spoke about autopackage. I would be pleased to hear about some
links detailing how autopackage plans to integrate with apt/dpkg.

Regards,
Sami Dalouche


Quoting Wouter Verhelst <wouter@debian.org>:

> (Side note: What's this obsession with Joe User everyone has? If there's
> something _you_ have a problem with when using Debian, shoot. Otherwise,
> synaptic is very easy to use -- even to Joe User).
>
> On Sun, Sep 18, 2005 at 11:22:30PM +0200, Sami Dalouche wrote:
> > OK, may be an overkill.
> > But what happens with your solution if skype depends on libskype, which is
> not
> > available from debian's repository ?The user has to download several .debs
> in
> > order to install a single software ?
>
> You consider proprietary software developers to be competent enough to
> understand how Debian is supposed to work, and then create and maintain
> policy-compliant packages for their users?
>
> Hah.
>
> If they provide packages at all, they'll give you one package you're
> supposed to install. If you're lucky, it may have dependencies via the
> shlibdeps system. That's about it.
>
> One improvement that I can see is that the double-click action you're
> talking about would also run 'apt-get -f install' after installing the
> proprietary .deb to automatically install any dependencies. That's about
> it; all the rest is overkill.
>
> --
> The amount of time between slipping on the peel and landing on the
> pavement is precisely one bananosecond
>
>




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