Re: OneConf and Software Center

[Didier Roche]

On jeu., 2010-06-10 at 10:12 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
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> 
> Hi Didier

Hey Matthew

> 
> This is a combination of three bugs in Ubuntu Software Center.
> 
> First, the "Installed Software" section is supposed to be a categorized
> list of all packages installed on the system. Currently, though, it is
> an uncategorized list of only the applications installed on the system.
> 
> 
> Second, a package (e.g. dia-gnome) that provides an application (e.g.
> Dia diagram editor) should not show up separately from that application.
> This works in most listings, but it fails in "Installed Software" search
> results. 
> 
> And third, in any listing that includes packages that do not provide an
> application (e.g. dia-libs, dia-common), those packages are supposed to
> be hidden by default inside a "NN other technical items" disclosure
> panel. Currently they're just shown by default.
> 

tremolux showed me yesterday the recent improvement about showing only
the applications in Software-Center. I think I will just drop my
heuristic in OneConf (available at lp:oneconf) and go for it.

> 
> If anyone would like to fix any of these things, I'd greatly appreciate
> it. :-)
> 
> >> Do you know how Software Center decides which packages go into this
> >> list? I've looked at the source code (briefly) but I did not find
> >> much.  I'm sure a more thorough investigation would turn up more
> >> information but I'm not sure if it is worth the time since the list
> >> does not seem to be filtered how we want it to be.
> >...
> 
> Why would you ask USC for this list? Why not ask apt or aptdaemon
> directly, something like "Give me a list of all installed packages that
> aren't dependencies of ubuntu-desktop".

Hem, I didn't wrote that, I guess it was Jason's question. Current
implementation of oneconf is already doing this in a good way (taking
all installed metapackage depends/recommends and only mark as
"interesting" the manually installed package not in this list)

> 
> As for the interface for OneConf in general, this seems like it should
> be part of a standalone Migration Assistant for transferring your stuff
> to/from other computers (programs and files to/from Ubuntu, and files
> only to/from other OSes). The migration step in the Ubuntu installer
> would be an embedded subset of this overall feature.

Right, it triggers a lot of issues too, like synchronizing your
desktopcouch in the live installer, registering your ubuntu one account
and so on… I'm not sure that can be done in such short cycle. The design
of Migation Assistant already include it.

> 
> It might also make sense for recording/syncing the set of installed
> packages to be accessible from Ubuntu Software Center, but *maybe* only
> as a menu item that launches the Migration Assistant. What do you think?
> Is there any other reason you'd want to record that kind of list?

Hum, do you think that should be in a separate window? I like USC as you
designed it because it can morph on feature apps view, category view or
history view. In my first idea, that would only be a new "view" like a
category making it more integrated to Software Center.

One use case can be:
- it's been a month I've setup my netbook and my laptop, I've installed
a lot of applications on one and the other. Now I want to see which
applications I have on my netbook that I don't have on my laptop and the
other way (to eventually get to a smaller list).
so, it's not really a migration, like when I bzr branch and do criss
cross merge, it's not a migration. Hence the fact I find this proposal
less appealing.

In case you didn't find my silly mockup done during UDS:
http://people.canonical.com/~didrocks/oneconf/sc.png

On the library side:
- all the underground library is done (syncing, making the diff,
protocol over dbus)
- I should just transition to software-center way of defining an
application (branch just merged yesterday IIRC) as OneConf currently as
it's own way
- mvo told me that he will implement the plugin system to
software-center
- waiting for your feedbacks :)

Didier


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Re: OneConf and Software Center

[Milan Bouchet-Valat]

Le jeudi 10 juin 2010 à 10:12 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas a écrit :
> Why would you ask USC for this list? Why not ask apt or aptdaemon
> directly, something like "Give me a list of all installed packages that
> aren't dependencies of ubuntu-desktop".
I guess the idea is to get a minimal list of packages the user wants to
install on other computers. Excluding dependencies makes the list much
shorter and more human-readable, plus it is more future-proof if
dependencies change: only install the wanted application, and all its
dependencies.

But one could ask for all installed packages that are neither a
dependency of ubuntu-desktop nor automatically installed. Since this tag
already exists (used by e.g. apt-get autoremove), it can really help
here.


Regards



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Re: OneConf and Software Center

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

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Hi Didier

Didier Roche wrote on 22/04/10 09:33:
>
> Le mercredi 21 avril 2010 à 21:23 -0400, Jason J. Herne a écrit :
>...
>> Thanks for working with me to develop a good overview for OneConf
>> (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OneConf) and for considering my design ideas.
>...
>> I've been thinking about your suggested method of using Software
>> Center to obtain a list of user installed packages (minus dependencies
>> & Ubuntu base packages).  I have taken a look at the list of installed
>> applications as reported by S-C and I do not believe it works. I'm not
>> sure how software center decides which packages go into this list, but
>> it seems to contain both base packages as well as dependencies of
>> installed packages.
>>
>> See http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=1t7wjd&s=5
>> This shows some base packages listed in Software Center, like Archive
>> manager and Calculator.
>
> This one is not important to me and seems even logical, as there are
> still "applications", you maybe want to remove the Calculator from an
> installed desktop (no offense robert_ancell ;)). So, keeping the
> default list somewhere is something not directly related.
>
>> See http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=148jay1&s=5
>> This was taken right after command 'sudo apt-get install dia'.
>> Software Center is showing the library files and common files for Dia.
>
> hum, this one is more annoying. Thanks for looking at that.

This is a combination of three bugs in Ubuntu Software Center.

First, the "Installed Software" section is supposed to be a categorized
list of all packages installed on the system. Currently, though, it is
an uncategorized list of only the applications installed on the system.


Second, a package (e.g. dia-gnome) that provides an application (e.g.
Dia diagram editor) should not show up separately from that application.
This works in most listings, but it fails in "Installed Software" search
results. 

And third, in any listing that includes packages that do not provide an
application (e.g. dia-libs, dia-common), those packages are supposed to
be hidden by default inside a "NN other technical items" disclosure
panel. Currently they're just shown by default.


If anyone would like to fix any of these things, I'd greatly appreciate
it. :-)

>> Do you know how Software Center decides which packages go into this
>> list? I've looked at the source code (briefly) but I did not find
>> much.  I'm sure a more thorough investigation would turn up more
>> information but I'm not sure if it is worth the time since the list
>> does not seem to be filtered how we want it to be.
>...

Why would you ask USC for this list? Why not ask apt or aptdaemon
directly, something like "Give me a list of all installed packages that
aren't dependencies of ubuntu-desktop".

As for the interface for OneConf in general, this seems like it should
be part of a standalone Migration Assistant for transferring your stuff
to/from other computers (programs and files to/from Ubuntu, and files
only to/from other OSes). The migration step in the Ubuntu installer
would be an embedded subset of this overall feature.

It might also make sense for recording/syncing the set of installed
packages to be accessible from Ubuntu Software Center, but *maybe* only
as a menu item that launches the Migration Assistant. What do you think?
Is there any other reason you'd want to record that kind of list?

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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