[maemo-developers] Application Manager and Extras-devel: Dealing with unstable software

[From: Aniello Del Sorbo]

This could be a way.

One could also think about using a new keyword for the .install file, i.e.
for ex. "stability_level = <level>", that can be set to:

0 "alpha" (marked red)
1 "beta" (marked yellow)
2  "stable" (marked green)

And AM can be configured to show only levels from 0, from 1 or from 2
(default).

There are plenty of ways...
Perhaps a mix of them hides the perfect solution.

Aniello

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:22 PM, gary liquid <liquid at gmail.com> wrote:

> There should be a whitelist of applications to use from -devel with a
> method to add or select packages from within it.
>
> If I *choose* to get involved in the xournal beta testing and want to
> obtain it from -devel this should not effect the testing status of other
> applications which I am not focusing upon nor testing.
>
> This way only xournal will be listed as coming from -devel and nothing
> else.
>
> If at a later date I also wish to test out another cool application I could
> simply add that as well, but at no time would I get unexpected dangerous
> updates.
>
> gary (lcuk on #maemo)
>
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Aniello Del Sorbo <anidel at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>>
>> There's no way to avoid developers setting up their own repositories if
>> they want to do it for whatever
>> reason they might have.
>> Having a "temporary repository" flag or keyword in the install file, would
>> help as these
>> developers could use a .install file that adds the temporary repositories,
>> install the application,
>> then removes the repository.
>>
>> Also "external" repositories or application that comes from external ones,
>> could be colored
>> in yellow (warning), not installable ones (AM knows that) in red and
>> installable ones (from known
>> repositories) in green.
>> An External repository can be anything that is not from Nokia and not from
>> Maemo.
>>
>> I have my Xournal diablo alpha version in the Extras-devel since a long
>> time now and I had many users
>> that installed it as they found the update when another application
>> required the extras-devel repository,
>> added it and left it there.
>>
>> AM could also implement filters. Show All applications, Applications from
>> known repositories, Applications
>> from external repositories.
>>
>> Sorry for not exposing the ideas in a better way, too late and tired. :)
>>
>> Aniello
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:16 PM, Simon Pickering <
>> S.G.Pickering at bath.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> > the unstable repository--whatever, so the user decides (perhaps with
>>> > the encouragement of some of their peers) to dive in, add the unstable
>>> > repository and install the application.
>>>
>>> Use an install file to install the application in question? Assuming
>>> the application needs libraries which are contained in the
>>> extras-devel repo, you'd need to temporarily enable that repo. My
>>> feeling is that the repos enabled/added as part of install files
>>> should be disabled immediately after the app in question has been
>>> added in any case, so I suggest this change is made to the way
>>> Application Manager handles the install files.
>>>
>>> Would that achieve the desired goal? It would require that a list of
>>> application install files are available (perhaps auto-generated from
>>> the contents of the repo, or perhaps by the author in question?)
>>>
>>> > packages origin (color coding, a small icon) and notices might also
>>> > help ("this package is unstable software, and may contain many
>>> > significant bugs, are you sure you want to install it?"), or even some
>>> > sort of apt pinning system to ignore certain updates.
>>>
>>> I also like the idea of flagging applications that come from somewhere
>>> other than Extras, and I suppose it would be possible to have an
>>> Updates section with Stable and Unstable candidates in it (or perhaps
>>> allow updates to be sorted by their origin repo - and have Extras as
>>> the default origin). But these are still more for power users, simply
>>> disabling the repo immediately after use is imo a better bet for
>>> unskilled "users".
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>>
>>> Simon
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> maemo-developers mailing list
>>> maemo-developers at maemo.org
>>> https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> anidel
>>
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>>
>
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-- 
anidel
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