Bug#331528: ITP: debinstaller -- a graphical frontend for installing local .deb packages
Em Seg, 2005-10-03 às 23:09 +0200, Vegar Storvann escreveu:
> * Package name : debinstaller
> Version : 0.2.2
> Upstream Author : Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen
> * URL : http://www.daimi.au.dk/~kamstrup/linux/
> * License : GPL
> Description : a graphical frontend for installing local .deb packages
>
> Far too often people (read: newbies) get confused when they can't get
> *insert favorite package manager* to install the .deb's they've just
> downloaded. With DebInstaller installation is simply a double click
> away. No fancy features, just a small dialog that ask for the sudo password
> and if you really want to install.
Please, improve the long description. Copying verbatim from upstream
isn't generally a good option.
Now, my concerns about the application itself and the way it's
implemented:
1) It's too low-level
If something goes wrong on the dpkg side, it doesn't try to figure out
what went wrong to try to instruct the user, it simply spits out the
command it attempted to run and what dpkg returned. That is not very
user-friendly, IMHO.
2) It assumes too much
Why specifically gksudo? What if the user doesn't want to have sudo
installed at all, or hasn't put time into properly configuring it yet?
You know, configuring sudo isn't something most end-users are capable of
doing without too much trouble. I know there's still no reliable way of
determining what to do to achieve this, but gksu (which provides the
gksudo functionality too, it's the same binary) might implement
something in the sense of a fallback soon (try sudo, if it doesn't work,
fallback to su). Meanwhile, I don't think enforcing the use of gksudo is
desirable.
3) Its concept is broken
Whilst the other issues I mentioned above can be fixed with some work
(some with little, some with pretty much), this one can be quite
painful, and perhaps even impossible to fix, as it boils down to
considering the whole idea behind DebInstaller broken.
Using dpkg to achieve these goals is a bad idea, IMHO. It isn't supposed
to do some things, which, hence, it can't do, such as gracefully
resolving package conflicts in the better possible way or suggesting
possible solutions among which the user can choose during transitions,
or fetching packages the package being installed depends on. Just
suppose I get a .deb of a totally GNOMEfied package, which requires GTK+
(hence, GLib, Pango, ATK, etc.), Glade, GConf, GNOME VFS, GNOME Keyring,
and a bunch of other packages, not to mention all their dependencies.
What would DebInstaller do in such situations? Simply fail? I think
that's *bad*.
I totally agree with the point behind this app, I really think it's an
issue, but I don't think DebInstaller is the best way to solve it. What
I really think and have wanted to propose for quite some time now is
that real package managers, such as aptitude and synaptic should be able
to install .deb files. This way, you don't get "Yet Another Application
(tm)" to get users confused, and you get all the added benefits of those
real package managers, which are intended for real use by real users.
Perhaps I should explain more things and better, but I think what I've
written up to here is enough as food for thought. I'm eager to hear what
you think about my comments, but also hope I have changed your mind to
the slightest degree, as I don't really think this would be useful as
"Yet Another Package (tm)" in the already huge Debian archive.
Friendly,
--
Guilherme de S. Pastore (fatalerror)
<guilherme.pastore@terra.com.br>
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