Looking at Package Management for Karmic or Karmic+1

[Derek Broughton]

John Vivirito wrote:

> On 03/31/2009 06:19 PM, Evan wrote:
>> While apt, synaptic, update-manager, and gnome-app-install all do decent
>> jobs of providing front-ends for package management, there are a few
>> issues and common feature requests which bear taking a look at. This is a
>> strawman, so feel free to rip it apart as necessary.
>> 
>> PolicyKit
>> Synaptic runs fully as root. Unless there is a specific reason not to,
>> should it not be migrated to PolicyKit?
>>
> 
> The reason they start up as root is because other than browsing the
> packages is to install/remove and change repo settings. Most people that
> browse packages will install at least one. I guess i don't get the idea.

I guess I can't parse your first sentence.  One reason why I stopped ever
using synaptic is _because_ it runs full time as root, and locks the apt
database.  10 years ago Corel Linux had a version of kpackage that only did
what it had to as root, and kept the database locked as little as possible. 
I spend at least twice as much time using package managers to browse, than
to actually install.

>> Parallelism
>> Starting the install process in parallel with the download process as
>> soon as the first packages are finished downloading. (I got this idea
>> from brainstorm, but I can no longer find the relevant idea.)
> 
> By this you mean being able to browse packages while upgrade/install
> packages? Than start download of the packages you choose to
> upgrade/install? 

No, he means "install" some packages while others are still downloading.  I
can see that being very advantageous to a dial-up user, but I wonder if it
can even be possible.
-- 
derek