Custom web browser protocol to install from apt-get

[Michael Vogt]

On Thu, Mar 23, 2006 at 12:14:47AM +0300, Arwyn Hainsworth wrote:
[..]
> On 22/03/06, martin f krafft <madduck at debian.org> wrote:
> > On the other hand implementing a browser protocol for apt-get is
> > > not the right way to go about solving the problem. A far better
> > > solution would be a dpkg wrapper that is executed for debs when
> > > the correct MIME is given. IE when you click the .deb file in the
> > > browser it gives you a 'open with deb installer' dialog instead of
> > > the 'open with archive-roller' it gives atm.
> >
> > FYI, w3m and any other browser that properly supports /etc/mailcap
> > will do this (at least on Debian). But this approach won't do
> > dependencies.
> 
> 
> Yes, yes, _I_ know that, but my sister doesn't? And what if she wants to
> install Opera? She goes to the site, selects 'ubuntu' from the list,
> downloads the file, finds it in nautilus in Home and ... unzips it? This is
> a bug, I remember it being filed somewhere. Might even be fixed in dapper,
> haven't checked. It doesn't matter though, because my post wasn't a bug
> report, it was my view on the solution to the problem posed in my original
> post's parent.
> 
> Now I will provide my updated view on my solution to the problem:
> 
> a) A simple gui deb installer for 3rd party software that isn't in any
> official repository.
>      Note: I agree that installing directly from the web is a bad idea, but
> you shouldn't have to resort to the console to do it.

This is installed by default on most systems nowdays. It's called
'gdebi' and is part of ubuntu-desktop. There was a bug though that
kept it from being the default handler for debs.

> b)  Something like ThirdPartyApt <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThirdPartyApt> to
> provide easy installation from repositories.
[..]

A lot of this is adressed in gnome-app-install (see the spec at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThirdPartyPackages). It's has a flexible
system to get package of proprietary vendors in (e.g. opera if they
are interessed :)

Cheers,
 Michael

-- 
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo