Re: RHN-like applet for APT?

[Michael Vogt <mvogt@acm.org>]

On Mon, Dec 29, 2003 at 02:13:36PM -0600, Jerry Haltom wrote:
> That would be a REALLY neat idea, and probably VERY simple. We already
> have the most important part: synaptic.
> 
> The first problem I see is the applet would need to check for updates,
> without root access. I don't think the normal apt access methods will
> work as a user.

That's true. The infrastructure is already in synaptic, but the
problem is the root access. A possible way to workaround this problem
is to have alternative list, status and archive dirs. 

Something like: 
 apt-get -o Dir::State::lists=/tmp/xxx  \
         -o Dir::Cache::Archives=/tmp/xxx \ 
         -o Dir::State::status=/tmp/status/status \
         -o Dir::Cache=/tmp/xxx \
        upgrade

will work. Copying the file from /var/whatever into /tmp/xxx needs to
be done first. Synaptic can make use of all this config vars too, so
we could write something that displays available updates in a user
friendly way using the higher-level libs in the common/ subdir of
synaptic. I consider this copying a bit clumsy, but it's the only way
I know to handle the situtation in non-root mode.

How does the RHN applet work exactly? Does it connect automatically,
does it monitor the interfaces or do you have to start it by hand?
Does it use some custom protocol or how does it know about changes?
 
bye,
 Michael

> On Mon, 2003-12-29 at 01:05, Emil Soleyman-Zomalan wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Is there a need for a RHN-like applet for APT? If yes, is it possible to
> > port the RHN applet to support apt repositories (written in python) or
> > would a re-write be warranted?
> > 
> > Would anyone be interested in seeing such a project take shape?
> > 
> > -- 
> > Emil Soleyman-Zomalan <emil@nishra.com>
> -- 
> Jerry Haltom <jhaltom@feedbackplusinc.com>
> Feedback Plus, Inc.



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Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo