"Download & Install" vs "Repositories & Synaptic" and the need for a new URI [Was: Re: Going forward [Re: Automatix?]]

[Tristan Wibberley]

Jason Taylor wrote:
>> 2. NO direct link mechanism exists from a web page DIRECTLY to the
>> package in Synaptic.  What we need is a web URI (Uniform Resource
>> Identifier, i.e. like http:, mailto:, ftp:, gopher:) that can have a tag
>> that points directly to the package in Synaptic.  Clicking it opens
>> Synaptic, and does a search for whatever follows the URI (lets call it
>> 'apt:'), ready to 'Apply'. This would works similar to 'mailto:' which
>> also fires up an external (default) application, (the user's email
>> software), and starts a new message with whatever follows the 'mailto:'
>> URI in the 'To:' field.
> 
> See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/aptgetinstallprotocol we REALLY need some
> thing like this, I dont care how it works lets just make it easier

How something like that works is *far* more important than how easy it
is unless you don't mind tons of worms and viruses going around. I
reckon users would prefer a few extra steps of an occasional task than
virus/trojan removals and reinstalls, and contacting the bank to suspend
the internet banking, etc, etc. It is very easy to ruin a user's
experience by being careless.

I think such a click install thing should be able to just select
packages from pre-configured repositories, and should be able to
*request* temporary addition of repositories, with the client giving a
*big* fat warning for new packages to be installed, and an even
*bigger*, *fatter* warning for packages being replaced that were
initially installed from a repository with a different signature.

That needs significant changes to apt (except the very first bit, which
is pretty easy to do).

-- 
Tristan Wibberley