PackageKitCompat

Revision 1 as of 2011-10-20 08:17:58

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Summary

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

AptDaemon was initially written to overcome the short commings of PackageKit for APT and to provide a deeper integration into the system. PackageKit is separated into two D-Bus interface. On the one hand the system DBus interface provides a full fledged API for a package managing application (e.g. update manager or application manager) on the other one the session DBus interface which should be used by third party applications only. Since we already had powerful package mangers (software-center and update-manager) there wasn't any need to focus on the system DBus interface. The session DBus interface was implmeneted by session-installer for Ubuntu/Debian.

But nowadays with GObject Introspection and a better client library the use of the session interface isn't very popular anymore. Some GNOME applications directly use the glib based client library, e.g. nautilus or the coming region/language settings.

A second reason is that also some Ubuntu specific applications want query for updates (session-indicator). It would make sense to provide a sane API here which uses caches. So the use of PackageKit's GetUpdates method would be good idea. This would also allow to use the gnome-settings-daemon update and firmware plugins in favor of update-notifier in the long run.

A valid question is: Why not replace AptDaemon by PackageKit at all? The answer is that we need a highly integrated backend for software-center: chaining of transactions, storing meta-data in transactions, handling of purchases, downloading while installing (coming feature)

User stories

Assumptions

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

  • data migration, if any
  • redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
  • how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during testing, and to show off after release. Please add an entry to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Coverage/NewFeatures for tracking test coverage.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Unresolved issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

CategorySpec