Apt-Get Web Suggest

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/apt-get-install-protocol

• Created: 2006-03-23 by KillerKiwi

• Contributors: KillerKiwi

• Packages affected:

Summary

No direct link exists from web pages to the package in synaptic/gnome-app-install.

It would be nice if you could click on a url in a web page (install://bluefish) and trigger a suggested pacakge to be displayed in gnome-app-install

Rationale

Linspire CNR / Klik etc get a lot of kudos for 'one click install' ability, gnome-app-install is much more powerful yet users get lost between the website and application task.

It would be nice if you could click on a link on a web page and gnome-app-install opened with the application(s) listed (all ready for the user to select and install), it would also go a long way to bridging the install (download from web site) gap that MS refugees are used to.

At the moment the distance between seeing an app on a website and triggering the install is simply a long road to travel.

• 1 I see the web site http://muine-player.org 2 I think cool, install this, so i click on the download link 3 I see the 'ubuntu' link and click it 4 I see a page saying "ubuntu has packages"

  5 I open Add/Remove (because of course i know what it does...)

  6 I type the search phrase "muine" after checking the spelling 7 I click the install check box 8 I click Apply 9 I click Apply again 10 I enter sudo password 11 Application Installs !!

Would be nice if that could be cut to

• 1 I see the web site http://muine-player.org 2 I think cool install this, so i click on the download link 3 I see the 'ubuntu' link (install://muine) and click it, Add/Remove opens with application selected (or maybe force user 1 extra step to check it??) 4 I click Apply 5 I click Apply again 6 I enter sudo password 7 Application Installs !!

Thats a saving of 4 steps, a bit of typing and a bit of 'know how' to look in Add/Remove in the first place.

Package suggest links could then start appearing every where - blogs, forums, wiki's etc..

In an alternate universe if every distro handled the suggest link with thier own packaging system.... then we could have "click here to install for linux"....

Use cases

• Blogger reffers people to 'cool' applications - http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/26/essentials-2006

• Ubuntu help documentation refers to an application that is not installed
• Wiki howto gives instructions on how to apt-get packages
• Forum users give instructions on how to apt-get packages
• Email grandma an apt-get-install link to enable her to install that bridge game she wants
• Bert fresh from switching from that 'other OS' is used to installing applications from web pages.
• Firefox plugin finder could be redirected to install://flashplugin-nonfree etc...

Scope

• Will only apt-get install packages in the existing repo lists does not cover adding new repositires (although maybe user could be prompted with the details of the repo they need to add with a nice warning...)
• KISS - Keep it simple stupid, protocol only allows simple 'install'
• Should allow a list of packages to be installed ie install://beagle%20monodevelop%20tomboy

Implementation

• Patch gnome-app-install to accept command line package selections [gnome-app-install mozilla-thunderbird]
• Patch gnome-app-install to allow selection by package names as well as key word search
• Add keys to Gconf for install:// protocol to trigger gnome-app-install
  • (code exists)

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3972/screenshotdq6.th.png [http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotdq6.png]

• A previous proof of concept attempt with code and poll at the ubuntu forums

  • http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=215583

Related Pages

• ThirdPartyApt

• ThirdPartyPackages

Comments

• killerkiwi - The feed back from the forum is mostly positive the only real concern being security and the possibility that the protocol could be used for some devious means, mailto: etc have being doing this for years so I'm sure smarter people than me can think of a way to make this safe.