Re: [GSoC] KDE4/Qt4 based package manager
On 2009-03-29, Mateusz 'Matthew' Marek <matthew@matthew.org.pl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would be interested in making KDE4/Qt4 based package manager. I am
> 2nd year student of computer science from Poland (Gdansk University of
> Technology, CET/CEST) with some experience in C/C++ and Qt programming
> and git as SCM. Currently during my spare time I am working on light
> music player in Qt4.5 for Linux (something like foobar2000 for
> Windows). I think that it will be possible for me to do that package
> manager, if I take some time during the community bounding period to
> learn more about Debian package system and reserve my vacation and end
> of time to my vacation and main application.
>
> I think that it will be good idea to make this application only in Qt
> (without KDE4). Thanks to that someone who doesn't use KDE could use
> this package manager without downloading extra dependeces.
> How this package manager should look? I would make it look a bit like
> synaptic or shaman (from Chakra). I think that aptitude-gtk and adept
> are not userfriendly. Using these applications was quite difficult for
> me. This kind of program is aimed at beginners, so we must make
> everything to try make package installing with this tool as simple as
> possible.
> That's why I think the best way to make Qt4 based package manager is
> make it from scratch.
>
> If you have any questions, just send me an email. I have problem with
> writing in English, but I hope that content of this email is clear for
> you.
As being the one who suggested this project, I guess I should answer as
well.
I guess I will start with the "bad things" in your mail and then go on
from there.
I don't think a package manager frontend should be "aimed at beginners",
if that means that you by design not can get to any advanced features
thru the interface. But what do you mean by "user friendly"? "beginner
friendly"? "not friendly to the power user"?
I don't think that "making a package manager from scratch" is the right
way to do either, at least if that involves writing resolver engines and
such.
Note that synaptic, aptitude-gtk and adept all uses libraries
for dependency resolving. Starting from "adept" will give you a working
interface to libapt.
Adept also uses apt-xapian-index for some of the searching which might
or might not complicate things for you as a user.
I do also think that aptitude-gtk and adept have a fairly different way
of doing things, so putting them in the same "not userfriendly" bucket
can't be right.
enough of the bad sides.
Doing it with Qt libs and without kdelibs is fully possible and I will
not recommend either of the ways, because both ways are fully valid.
And thank you for looking into a kde4/qt4 based package manager, it is
really needed.
Starting from adept gives you nice interaction with apt and a search
possibilities thru apt-xapian-index, and then you have the possibilities
to muffle the userinterface around to actually make it fit better into
what's good for package management and also choices about wether how
detailed information about the progress of the equivalent of "apt-get
update" should be.
I do also think adept has its shortcomings, especially between the
"search" and "details" tab, but I do like that it is based on debtags
rather than archive sections, the latter being something that should go
away.
But there is more into it than the user interface.
Adept is missing signature verification, I think.
Adept is missing sources.list editor.
I mostly think adept is the way to start from because it is actually
kind of working and you don't have to start from scratch.
and some real nice things might be policykit-integration, integration
with kde for proxy-information and such.
/sune
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