Re: A web-based frontend to apt (or, configuring a new pseudo-protocol)

[Paul Morgan <paulswm@earthlink.net>]

Jonathan Dowland wrote:

> Has anyone heard of a web-based frontend to apt? What I am thinking of
> is configuring a browser to accept some kind of pseudo-protocol such as
> apt://package-name 
>
> 'Why' you might ask? Well, I've been thinking for a long time about
> different ways the archive could be organised. I've just browser through
> the entire devel section looking for specific tools related to
> comprehension that are somewhat drowned in the rest of the stuff
> there.
>
> If you could configure a browser in debian to accept urls of the form
> apt://package-name , or perhaps something more sensible, such that a
> debian user properly configured could click on the link and launch
> apt-get or aptitude or similar to install the package, then we could
> experiment with different ways of organising the archive through
> 3rd-party websites. (I would chuck together some kind of wiki-thing for
> tools to support code comprehension, personally.)
>
> If I were to skim over the above I'd start to get worries of 'security
> threat' etc. however what I am proposing is not that a website could get
> you to install a package hosted there, just suggest a package to be
> installed- you would use your normal mirrors.
>
> Erm yes, so, any ideas or opinions? Have I made myself clear or am I
> just rambling incoherently?
>
>  
There is a package dpkg-www which I sometimes use for browsing packages. 
It's really not that helpful though.  It can be set up to do installs, 
etc., but I've never tried it.  But it may be a starting point for you.

--
....................paul

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never
kept but one: they promised to take our land, and they took it."

- Chief Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta) of the Oglala Sioux