Solving the .desktop problem in Gnome-App-Install

On Sat, 2005-11-05 at 12:02 +1000, Robert Stoffers wrote:

> 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. 

I'd like to support this idea: if gnome-app-install is to be the primary
or only package manager available from the menus, it is very important
that users who wish to install a package without a .desktop file (for
example gstreamer0.8-mad from universe) are not forced to search
gnome-app-install first, then go to advanced and search synaptic, but
can do one easy search which saves them this waste of time. It's a small
feature addition to GAI, but would ensure that GAI is actually a
realistic default package manager.

From a documentation point of view, it is absolutely impossible to
document anything useful without either (a) recommending the user to use
synaptic all the time, or (b) the implementation of something along the
lines of what Rob has suggested.

To give an example, if you check out
http://help.ubuntu.com/starterguide/C you'll see that where the guide
recommends the user to install a particular package, it will almost
always be a package without a desktop file. You will readily appreciate
that going through every application to see if it can be installed from
GAI is difficult. Not to mention the fact that recommending users to
install specific packages using different methods is incredibly
inelegant.

Hope this makes sense!
-- 
mdke at ubuntu.com
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF
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