Custom web browser protocol to install from apt-get

[Derek Broughton]

Jason Taylor wrote:

>> 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.
> Agree im pretty sure this is being taken care of for dapper

How?  I haven't seen such a thing.  I still use wget to get the odd .deb and
dpkg to install it.  Such a toy would be really useful for geeks like me
who like to live on the edge :-)
> 
>> c) A repository browsing protocol e.g. apt://

We've had that since before Ubuntu existed.  It's "kio_apt", and implements
apt: urls.

>> Kinda like you can do at packages.debian.org.

It may not be exactly what you're thinking of, but it _is_ very much like
packages.debian.org or packages.ubuntu.com

> Why would a user (think grandma) want to browse a repositry?? Dont
> they just want to install the software, they dont care about
> dependencies

Of course they don't, but are we _really_ targeting ubuntu only at Grandma? 
If it's going to continue to be a success, it needs to adequately support
geeks _and_ grandmas (we need at least one more 'g' - we're definitely not
just a 2G OS).
> 
> I think there are two issues coming out here,
> a) The original idea to be able to install software from apt with out
> having to use the CLI or open synaptic.

I'm not sure _that's_ required.  Corel Linux managed to associate .deb's
with kpackage - and I bet the average Ubuntu user started using Linux
_after_ the demise of Corel Linux.  I could accept if synaptic was able to
process downloaded debs.
> 
> b) Third party software is dificult if not impossible for a new linux
> user to install, but this is offset by the security gains of users not
> installing random files from the web.

Yeah.  I _really_ think we need to fix some of these obstacles, yet ...
there is a security issue.
-- 
derek