-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Benji Weber wrote:
On 5/5/07, Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> wrote:
Definitely. Webpin is a great tool, but there is an issue with it: hosting. We definitely need a more reliable hosting solution for it [...] I really think that at some point, we should find a reliable hosting solution (not in the USA because of its legislation) for community projects like that, funded by donations (PayPal).
I agree, but I think there is significant growth required before we will need, or be able to afford this.
Not necessarily. The costs won't be that high. [...]
And then, IMO the focus should be put on usability of the package manager (adding/removing/refreshing repositories, finding/installing packages, installing patches/online updates, upgrading packages (including from 3rd party repos), etc...).
Hear, Hear. Although there has been some progress (pun intended) in 10.2, it is still essentially the same GUI designed for 8.1. Back then installing software from CDs was the only significant use case.
Right. Not much has changed since then. Or rather: a lot of energy, time and money was wasted into the development of ZMD on openSUSE. The helper applets aren't _that_ bad (but the backend is awful). But still, package management is definitely the Achille's Heel of the distribution, at the very least in terms of usability.
But frankly, instead of always blaming Novell/SUSE and the developers, we should come up with some discussion and brainstorming on what we would like to see and what we think would be a good solution both for beginners and for advanced users. And then send a proposal to the developers (or possibly do some implementation work ourselves).
Indeed, and this is beginning to happen, but the bottleneck always remains the SUSE people who are not being proactive in engaging with these efforts.
True, unfortunately. Most probably due to a lack of resources (as in people, time) or a questionable (from the community's point of view) order of priorities. But the community side of things has its own share of issues we shall (try to) work on. And even if the SUSE people don't have enough time to be proactive about certain things, we can still try to push forward as much as possible, and present ideas, concepts, software that is as accomplished as possible, to reduce the workload on their side. Clearly identifying the main blockers wrt us working more directly on the distribution and its tools should probably be the top priority, and something to address as soon as possible. Ideally coming up with a prioritized list of things we would want them to do.
We need public planning of development "sprints" with the community actively involved and aware of what is going on, and being encouraged to participate. Right now we have the situation where SUSE people do things behind closed doors for a while, and announce their status at status meetings. No-one outside knows what is underway or how to get involved.
That, sadly, is very true and has happened for a lot of things. It got better, as compared to where we were at the openSUSE.org launch, but it's still progressing too slowly and too partially. Maybe it's about time to use this mailing-list to announce, give status information, call for ideas and help about projects. The opensuse@opensuse.org list is useless with respect to anything but ridiculously long off-topic threads (about 60-70% of the posts) and getting entry-level support, and this (opensuse-project) list isn't used enough. Having information, discussions and initiatives spread across around 40 mailing-lists (not counting language-specific support lists) as we do currently isn't very effective either. Frankly, I doubt any of the SUSE people will see this thread and jump on to make some comments.. one cannot monitor that many lists (or interesting posts in a load of off-topic crap). [...]
It seems easy to implement, but getting a list of those repositories is problematic for legal reasons.
It would be easy to do either from api.opensuse.org (this doesn't have any public features at present so can't be used). Or from my search service, expanding something like: http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/searchservice/SearchService/Repos/openSUSE_102 to also include descriptions and other metadata from the .repo files on the build service.
Well, even if it's just some plain stupid XML/text file that's maintained somewhere (not hosted by Novell), it would already do the trick. - From the technical point of view: - - it shouldn't be hosted by Novell (i.e. not on opensuse.org) because of potential legal issues wrt linking - - the URL from where to fetch that meta-repository list must be configurable (to pre-configure it with a list of "legally OK" repositories + allow people to use another, non-Novell-hosted URL to get a list of all repositories (including e.g. Packman)) - - it must be easy to find (opensuse-community.org, google hits)
I have an example YaST based frontend to the search service in the MetaPackage-Package you kindly made for me. Install http://benjiweber.co.uk/mp/yast2-mpp-0.0-0.suse102.noarch.rpm and run "/sbin/YaST2 PackageSearch" to play. Screenshot: http://bw.uwcs.co.uk/packagesearch-yast.png .
Awesome stuff :) Just as a side note: when the containing repository is already in the list of "installation sources", it would be nice to display it accordingly. Currently, it shows the required repository in the "Select the software repositories you wish to subscribe to" list, although it's there already.
The "Install Now" hooks into the automatically generated meta-packages from the SearchService to add the repository and install the package automatically. The same principle could be used to make a list of repositories with checkboxes as per Alberto's suggestion.
Indeed. Mirror selection would be another thing to implement, but that's lower priority.
Yet, maybe having a "meta-repository" (sort of a "repository of repositories") hosted elsewhere (e.g. opensuse-community.org) could be a solution.
Something like http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/searchservice/SearchService/Repos/openSUSE_102 with more information I think.
Yes, absolutely. Possibly with a list of mirrors to choose from. [...]
But Benjamin is also working on that: having files that not only have a list of packages to install with a single click (more or less), but also dependent repositories that are added if not already present.
Indeed, see the above meta-package-package and http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/webpin/index-test.jsp to play.
Nice, didn't notice those "Install now" links :) (maybe add an icon next to those links ? ;)) [...]
My demo yast module for this: - Prompts user for root password /after/ displaying all the information about what will be done to the system to make malicious use as easy for the user to detect as possible. - All the Package Signature checking etc is provided by the yast package installation/ repository handling api already, so done for us.
Yeah. Found a way to make the links work with Firefox ? cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPR3gr3NMWliFcXcRAgAcAJwI4HpOePMcEo3b1JEyzbuDlN0bLQCfetV7 uZwyJGdwvy0zrDGPoeDoUvU= =6mSe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org