Solving the .desktop problem in Gnome-App-Install

Hi all,

The Docteam just had a meeting were we discussed how we would write
about installing Ubuntu packages in our documentation for Dapper.
Currently there are several methods of installing packages in Ubuntu,
and depending on what we write about we cannot just use
Gnome-App-Install as a one stop shop without limiting our scope. The
problem then will be forking of our work and another Ubuntuguide.org
appearing, which is a situation we want to avoid. 

To solve this problem we believe Gnome-App-Install needs a way of
installing packages that do not include a .desktop file. The solution
does not need to be complicated, a simple dialogue box that allows the
user to enter the package names then uses apt-get/synaptic/etc in the
background would suffice, the user can just copy and paste the package
names from our docs into this dialogue box to install them. 

We also realise that Synaptic is available from within Gnome-App-Install
by clicking on Advanced but it is hardly an ideal solution.
Gnome-App-Install is an excellent application, however this small
addition would make Gnome-App-Install so much more useful and cause
package management in Ubuntu to be easier to deal with.

Regards,

-- 
Robert Stoffers
Author/Maintainer - Ubuntu Starter Guide
Ubuntu Documentation Team

Email - rstoffers at g mail dot com