Re: Installing 3rd party packages, apt URIs

On Monday 19 January 2004 15:53, Marcin Pawlik wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 19 at 12:10, Kevin Krammer wrote:

> > Of course that would only work for root.  Do you think Kaptive runs as
> > a normal user?
> >
> > The protocol handler woudl obviously need to invoke a kdesu command
> > for the installation manager.
>
> I don't know what Kaptive is but your proposition would work for any
> user who has write permission to /etc/apt/sources.list. Currently it is
> only root but of course it can (but shouldn't) be changed.

My bad, it's called Kapture. You can see postings about it on this list from 
time to time. I just used it as an example for an apt frontend.

> > Adding a source permanetly could only be one option, I don't have enough
> > knowledge about apt-get, but maybe it can be given an editional file or
> > an additonal repository on the commandline.
>
> Yes, you can specify different sources.list file location.

Very good, didn't know that.
So it would be possible to create a temporary sources.list file, merge in the 
base file, add a new source and proceed with apt-get update && apt-get 
install package

Will have to play with that :)

> > IMHO one of the major advantages of Debian is its fantastic package
> > philosphy (small packages with dependencies)
>
> The second important advantage is its stability. If you use unofficial
> repositories you give the repository creator root rights on your
> machine. If there is, intentionally or not, something wrong with it you
> risk loosing your system. The same goes of course for manual .deb

True, but this is already happing. A lot of people use unofficial 
repositories, that's why a service like apt-get.org was really sought for by 
many.
I for example use KDE3.1 on Woody, from the semi-official repository 
download.kde.org (actually a mirror of it) and XFree4.2.1 from Adrian Bunk's 
repository.

I know that it bears a risk, but the other option is using unstable which is 
risky sometimes as well (if your upgrade at the wrong time)

> installation but it's not automatic nor persistent. In the case of
> source.list changes the repository becomes packages source until you
> remove it from there and its packages are upgraded and installed in the
> standard way people trust and don't watch so close. That's why I'm sure
> there should be no option of easy and automatic source.list changes you
> proposed.

That was my first idea or part of it.
Generally speaking I look for a way to have a resource "installed" not a 
package to allow easier installation than old-school downloading and using an 
installer.

I have only basic user level knowledge about apt-get and friends, that's one 
of the reasons I started this dicsussion ;)

> On the other hand if you think about something like alternative file
> with additional repositories which is used only when the user
> explicitly asks for it, confirms that understands it's unofficial and
> may result in system destruction and the installation procedure for it
> shows in details what would happen if packages from there are taken,
> then Ok, why not.

Good :)
I'd say there could be two modes.
The URL is processed and the checks if the package can be install run.
The user gets a list of what will happen, like running apt-get -u (optinally 
including -s)
If the user confirms, the package and dependencies are installed.
Then the program could ask something like "Do you want to add this resource to 
your permanent source list. You can then get updates as if it where a system 
package but it might also introduce problems because it is an unproofed 
source" <Make permanent> <Discard>

Usability people should come up with something more understandable :)

Cheers,
Kevin
-- 
Kevin Krammer <[email protected]>
Qt/KDE Developer, Debian User
www.mrunix.de - Unix/Linux programming forum
www.qtforum.org - Qt programming forum

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