Binary incompatibility of Linux distributions

[Odd]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Odd wrote:
> 
>> Synaptic is good, but not great. It could be better.
>> Also, the fact that there is so much software there could
>> be intimidating to newbies.
>> I'd like to have an alternative web front-end for it,
>> with more extensive descriptions, screenshots and filtering methods.
>> In it's current form, it's not particularly user-friendly.
> 
> Now you're talking.   This I completely agree with (and it goes for _all_ 
> the other apt front ends).

Good to know we agree about something. :)

> Unfortunately, "extensive descriptions" need more documentation effort from 
> packagers - and documentation is the weakest part of most Free software.  
> Screenshots would be nice, and could probably be handled by simply having an 
> optional HTML/XML file in packages that the apt front-end would look for, or 
> better a tag in the description pointing to web pages, so that one doesn't 
> need to download the package first.

Good idea. Should be fairly trivial to implement too !

> apt also needs a simpler way to add unknown third party repositories.  For 
> instance, if I have the URL for a specific package, I can usually work out 
> the address that needs to be added to /etc/apt/sources.list, so that I can 
> get automatic updates, but the ordinary end user will never work it out, or 
> figure out how to get (or why they should have) the gpg keys.  gdebi should 
> attempt to work these things out for you if you click on a deb package on a 
> website, and offer to add them to your sources (with appropriate warnings).

Agreed. That would be a big help.

-- 
Odd