OneConf and Software Center

[Didier Roche]

Le mercredi 21 avril 2010 à 21:23 -0400, Jason J. Herne a écrit :
> Hi didrocks,

Hey Jason

> 
> 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.

Thanks to you for setting up the page. I was quite surprised when I saw
your first draft as you just based on what I've initially written
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/10.10/BlueprintList) which is now
at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneConf#4. Initial Notes, and your first
draft was excellent on that regard ! You expanded what I was thinking
about in my initial notes perfectly :-)
Good to see contributions there especially when you didn't expect it
neither advertised more than writing notes on a wiki page about that
idea. :)

So, good surprise and thanks for involving you in that effort. Yes, I'm
the desktop team member who will dive into that effort for the maverick
cycle (see the blueprint ready for discussion at UDS, linking the wiki
page:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-maverick-oneconf).

> 
> 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 attached screen shot named 'sc-base.png'.  This shows some base
> packages listed in Software Center, like Archive manager and
> Calculator.

This one is not important to me and seems even logical, as there are
still "applications", you maybe want to remove the Calculator from an
installed desktop (no offense robert_ancell ;)). So, keeping the default
list somewhere is something not directly related.

> See attached screen shot named 'sc-deps.png'.  This was taken right
> after command 'sudo apt-get install dia'.  Software Center is showing
> the library files and common files for Dia.

hum, this one is more annoying. Thanks for looking at that.

> 
> 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.

I think we can ask to the author of software-center directly. I don't
know if mvo is following that list, I'll forward that to him if he
doesn't. I'd prefer discussing that at UDS (see below) as everyone is
currently busy with lucid release.

> 
> 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? 

I marked it as unrealistic because we don't really know what's the
consequence of such changes, and how they can integrated in Debian, as
well as it regarding the automatic mark on package. I'd prefer work that
on mvo who has the knowledge of all packaging management
(apt/synaptic/update-manager/ex gnome-app-install and now
software-center) and see if we can do that in a clean way in
software-center so that we can have the same algorithm :)

> 
> 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 :)

Thanks Jason for your interest in this. We will discuss that blueprint
at next UDS in Belgium (10-14th May). Did you plan to come? If not, you
should have a look at remote particpation
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-M/RemoteParticipation)

I don't expect to have much time to work on that before the UDS
discussion which is the one to take decisions :)

Thanks again,
Didier