Need advice pertaining to GSoC proposal

Debayan Banerjee debayanin at gmail.com
Sat Apr 4 07:35:34 UTC 2009


2009/4/3 David Timms <dtimms at iinet.net.au>:
> However, this shouldn't stop you from trying to rephrase the problem, step
> back, and look at the bigger picture, without getting into details like
> voting.
>

Ok. My only aim was to make package installations an easier task. I am
no Fedora ambassador but I do try a lot to spread Fedora in my
locality. Recently we had a training program where we were teaching
school teachers how to use openoffice on Linux. When they ask how they
are supposed to install packages I shudder to explain to them Fedora's
process. They just wont follow all that. So we have to go to openSuSE
1 click install etc.
Anyways, lets rephrase the problem.
Lets assume 3rd party repositories are evil all the time and not worth
anyone's trust. Lets only concentrate on official repositories and
official packages. What if we create an application (gui) which allows
you to drag a package to it and it goes ahead and downloads all the
dependencies and creates a repo alongwith a nice little .catalog file.
Here is where the scope for a modified schema for the catalog file
comes too. Suppose i distribute a CD which has multiple repos. repo.
in "Fedora/audio" and I create another folder which contains multiple
catalog files for amarok, banshee, rhythmbox etc. I can ask users to
pop in the CDs and click on these icons. Thats is, and everything gets
installed.
So what I essentially want is to create an application that creates
custom repos. quickly/easily and generates catalog files.
Now currently catalog files do not have the ability to trigger
addition of repos. Lets forget the url part totally. Adding an url
will make it a security hazard. What if we can add 2 things instead:
1) Relative path of the repo in the media (folder wise)
2) Official Fedora repository name (eg: development, extras,) with
version (rawhide, 9.0 etc)

What this will enable is inter-repository dependency preservation only
for official fedora repos or on media as add-ons.
Lets forget about the voting and everything (i though it was beautiful
though). Lets just make repo. creation and package installation
easier.


-- 
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