Custom web browser protocol to install from apt-get

[Arwyn Hainsworth]

On 22/03/06, martin f krafft <madduck at debian.org> wrote:
>
> also sprach Arwyn Hainsworth <arwyn at hainsworth.ru> [2006.03.19.1346+0100]:
> > Most things that make life easier are good things.
>
If it makes your life easier, does it also faciliate mine?


*sigh* No, it doesn't. That is why I carefully used the word 'most' and not
'Anything'. In general,  if something make life easier for me, it makes life
easier for those around me, because I'm slightly less annoyed at the world
and them for being part of it. This can be said of _almost_ any human on
this planet (and in orbit around it :) ).

> As long as you can still do things the hard way I see no reason
> > why a simpler form of package installation shouldn't exist.
>
> It may be erroneous and cause people to forget about how things
> really are?


IMHO They shouldn't have to know how they are for them to be able to forget
it. Users need to know how to _do_ things, not how they work. As far as
users are concerned even the most complex task should be a simple set of
buttons to press to get what he (or she) wants working. Of course security
must be taken into account every step of the way, but a user should _never_
be forced to use the console for something as simple as installing 3rd party
software.

> 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.

b)  Something like ThirdPartyApt <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ThirdPartyApt> to
provide easy installation from repositories.
     Note: Allowing the addition of generic repositories auto-magically is a
huge security hole. Bigger than single click .deb installation. Who knows
what evils could lurk on unofficial repositories. A slightly patched kernel
update perhaps? This problem can be fixed simply by white listing allowed
repositories or disallowing repository addition. IMHO Web-clickable apt-get
installing would be a good idea.

c) A repository browsing protocol e.g. apt://
     Note: apt-get is not a protocol and shouldn't be turned into one as
some of the posts seem to be suggesting. On the other hand a protocol for
browsing a repository would be nice. Currently you can view repositories or
rather the files they contain by simply pointing your browser at the http://
address. If you pointed you browser at the same location, but used apt://,
that information could be overlayed with the package meta-data, so you could
view the packages dependencies before you download it, etc. Kinda like you
can do at packages.debian.org.

Hmm... seems like my post has turned into a mini spec. *sigh*. If anyone has
spec links for the above ideas, please feel free to email me them. I have a
tendency for missing existing bugs(and specs) and filing duplicates, which
annoys me and the maintainers. Not good.

Arwyn
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