IDEA: apt-url clone

[hopp58902 Member]

Would anyone be willing to modify Ubuntu (or Debian's) "apt-url" source code to use pacman instead of apt-get?

Arch has no graphical package install method yet, with that in mind, the terminal command to install a package is:

"pacman -Sy packagename"

If anyone needs apt-url source, reply. I'll send it. This is honestly just a few replacements and apt-url is written in Python.

[rson451]

Can you throw the source up somewhere? Technically the command to install a package is just 'pacman -S packagename' , I'm not sure if that would matter in this case. I have no clue what apt-url is or what it does, but I'll take a look.

[hopp58902 Member]

*Technically*, but the extra y synchronizes the repositories first, which is good. Here is the source: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/11046/Shift/apt...2ubuntu2.tar.gz

[MindTooth]

Why not ask in the Arch forum too? I might guess someone would work with you on this.

Birger :)

[hopp58902 Member]

Lechio has looked at the apturl code and notes that many Ubuntu Firefox libs and ubufox modifications specific to the platform exist and has suggested writing it from the bottom up. That might be too much to worry about at the moment IMHO.

[rson451]

I noticed the same thing, though I admit I didn't look too hard. Is it really necessary though? Even windows users (I'm guessing that's the target audience for the most part) expect to download something and then run it to install software.

If you are looking simply for a GUI for pacman, the Shaman project is very well done, and should be quite comfortable for those used to Synaptic.

[hopp58902 Member]

Shaman is great but is written in Qt, right? I know it's geared toward KDE for sure.

[rson451]

It's written in qt, yes. What exactly is the concern with mixing toolkits, space? consistency? My thoughts on this are that the target audience is more the new crowd to Linux (that's how I understand the project anyway) and newcomers aren't going to understand right off the difference between toolkits. Chances are they are going to dip their hands in both buckets eventually anyway so why not give them a quality Pacman front end and at the same time save them a large download of qt later down the road? You could even go so far as to sanitize the differences in the toolkits with some custom qt and gtk themes that match or at least are eerily similar.

I'm not pushing qt by any stretch of the imagination, I use applications from both camps. Just my thoughts.

[LTSmash]

Is this about integration?

http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Projects/Styles/GtkStyle

There, with that we can have a native desltop look betweeen both toolkits...

[hopp58902 Member]

Can you (LTSmash) write a PKGBUILD for that and possibly test it on the Preview tomorrow? I included VLC and Qt.

[rson451]

LTSmash, there's a couple PKBUILDS in the AUR you can base off of, or possibly just use with version updates.

[hopp58902 Member]

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=9631

[LTSmash]

Can you (LTSmash) write a PKGBUILD for that and possibly test it on the Preview tomorrow? I included VLC and Qt.

Of course I can...

http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=9631

Nope, that works the other way, for GTK apps to integrate into KDE...