Deb Installer for Dapper.

On Mon, Oct 24, 2005 at 01:18:58PM +1000, George Deka wrote:
> Well in my ideal world it would work something like this
> 
> click on .deb (or maybesomething entirely different - read on) in browser,
> launches a deb helper app.
> This then feeds the header info of the application you are after, and then
> apt gets it and installs it for you.

This type of bait-and-switch behaviour is very frustrating for the user.
The UI should either give them what they asked for, or tell them no.  It
should not pretend to do one thing but do another behind the scenes.

That said, it is reasonable to provide some means to point the user at
official packages where available.  If the "nag" dialog proposed earlier in
this thread, rather than having buttons which amount to "do the wrong thing"
and "cancel", worked more like this:

Would you like to:

 * Install the registered, supported Firefox 1.5b2 package from
   ubuntu-backports, or

 * Install the Firefox 1.5b2 .deb you just downloaded, which cannot be
   verified to come from a trusted source, at your own risk

I think most users would opt for the former.  Of course, this could change
when the version numbers are not identical.

-- 
 - mdz