So I have this idea for the future of Trisquel - switching at the very least
the old Add-Remove menu out for something more modern. The current Add/Remove
doesnt handle PPAs well, and it's hard to add new programs to. A bunch of
metapackages are also incorrect (gambas2 for example) and I end up using
Synaptic in the end.
We could use the Software Center from upstream, but it has a problem. It's
hardcoded to the Ubuntu name and repositories and logo. A bug on this was
filed here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software-center/+bug/507325
Debian, which now uses the Software Center, has removed the Ubuntu part and
just called it "Software Center." Perhaps we could start from theirs?
We could also use PackageKit. It's got a nice GNOME frontend which you can
see here: http://www.packagekit.org/pk-screenshots.html#gnome
It however poses a number of things that need to be considered.
First, it comes with its own Update Manager and Software Sources menu. That
means we'd remove Synaptic and the other Update Manager unless we want two
different programs to do the same things. Still, the Software Sources and
Update Manager preferences in PackageKit I find to be much more sane,
especially for non-experienced users. I do not however know how PackageKit
handles distro upgrades, and Synaptic's preferences do provide for more
options about those.
The PackageKit Add-Remove menu is a step up or two from the current one as it
supports things likes queues. It has however one big problem and lacks one
feature.
The major problem is you go to filters you can filter it to show non-free
software. There's even an option to show *only* non-free software. I think
with Trisquel clicking such an option would return a blank list anyway, but
it's something we'd probably want to remove from the software, so that's
gonna need a patch.
And the feature I wish it had was Xapian-style search like the Software
Center, Synaptic, and the current Add-Remove have. It's that search box that
searches dynamically at every letter you type. PackageKit has you type in the
name then click search. Real-time style is better for those hard-to-spell
packages.
