OneConf and Software Center

[Jason J. Herne]

Hi didrocks,

Thanks for working with me to develop a good overview for OneConf (
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneConf) and for considering my design ideas.  If I
understand correctly you are the desktop team member who will be leading the
OneConf effort?  I'm excited about this idea and I'm eager to help design
and code it as much as I can.

I've been thinking about your suggested method of using Software Center to
obtain a list of user installed packages (minus dependencies & Ubuntu base
packages).  I have taken a look at the list of installed applications as
reported by S-C and I do not believe it works. I'm not sure how software
center decides which packages go into this list, but it seems to contain
both base packages as well as dependencies of installed packages.

See http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1t7wjd&s=5
This shows some base packages listed in Software Center, like Archive
manager and Calculator.


See http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=148jay1&s=5
This was taken right after command 'sudo apt-get install dia'.  Software
Center is showing the library files and common files for Dia.


Do you know how Software Center decides which packages go into this list?
I've looked at the source code (briefly) but I did not find much.  I'm sure
a more thorough investigation would turn up more information but I'm not
sure if it is worth the time since the list does not seem to be filtered how
we want it to be.

If using Software Center turns out not to work then we are back to either
detecting user installed packages from the data we already have or modifying
apt to save more metadata about installed packages.  I noticed that you
marked the later idea as unrealistic.  May I ask what your reasoning is?
Certainly changing apt in a way that is 100% backwards compatible is not out
of the question, correct?  Also, the previous work I mentioned on the Wiki (
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackageDependencyManagement) did something very
similar to what we need.  Not only does this previous effort set precedent
for such a change it even provides the framework for new extended package
states.  It seems as though it was the intention of the developer to allow
others to add new extended package states.  Since this is exactly what we
need, why not take advantage of it and simply create the new package states?


Thanks for your time and consideration.

note: I'm cc'ing the ubuntu-desktop list as others may have input or be able
to fill in the gaps in my Software Center knowledge :).  Sorry if you get
this twice, the 1st one was rejected by the list server as the attachments
put it over the maximum allowable size.

-- 
- Jason J. Herne (hernejj at gmail.com)
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