Bug#331528: ITP: debinstaller -- a graphical frontend for installing local .deb packages

[Vegar Storvann <vegar@sunscream.net>]

Guilherme de S. Pastore wrote:
> 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.

It spits out what dpkg says, and that is, IMHO, very user-friendly (that is, if 
the user can read).

> 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.

It's not that hard to make it use gksu instead of gksudo, so I don't think
that's a really big issue,.

> 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.

http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/k/KISSPrinciple.html

> 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*.

And what if you don't have DebInstaller? There's no way of installing a .deb
without using dpkg, and dpkg would simply fail anyways.
I honestly think mr. Point-And-Click would prefer double-clicking a file to
attempt to install it rather than typing lots of strange commands in a terminal.
The error messages are still be the same.

> 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.

It may not be the best way, but currently, while waiting for the real package 
managers to implement such a feature, it's the only way.

> 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>