GUI frontend to slackpkg ?
 

Hello everybody,

I wonder if there's some sort of Synaptic-like graphical frontend to slackpkg. You may wonder what on earth got into me for asking this. Here goes.

More often than not, my clients have the odd exotic requirement. They all use my beefed-up MLED desktop, which is a one-size-fits-all desktop filling most requirements. But it rarely stops here. One client needs an application to revise movie scripts, another needs to access his iPod, another one wants to read his ebooks or have some basic touch-typing training. Or use AMule. Etc.

Now thanks to the slackpkg+ plugin I can setup my own MLED repository, integrate new apps nicely into the repo for 32-bit and 64-bit machines, and then fetch them via slackpkg.

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/M...0-32bit/extra/

A simple 'slackpkg search microlinux' shows me the "status" of the client's desktop, e. g. which apps are installed, which are not installed, which can be updated, etc.

Now a graphical frontend to all this would be nice, because this would allow some of my clients to perform a few basic tasks like upgrading or installing the odd extra application by themselves.

I doubt that such an application exists. But hey, I'll just ask anyway.

Hello Nicolas,

I don't know of any but it shouldn't be difficult to write one yourself, with either 'dialog' (heavily used by Slackware's installer and many Slackware tools and also BTW by slint's toolbox) or 'Xdialog', which is a GTK+ application, intended to be a drop-in replacement of 'dialog' and for which a SlackBuild is available @ slackbuilds.org.

The problem I see with a Slackpkg GUI is if any of the X packages need updated (kde/, xfce, x/, xap/ among possibly others), X cannot be running.

X can be running while X packages are upgraded. Any shared libraries that are in use but get removed will remain mapped in memory until nothing is using them any longer.

That said, I don't see how a GUI would improve slackpkg much.

Are you sure? let's say xorg-server is updated, for instance: the new version won't be used till next (re)start of the server, so I don't see a problem here. Same for DEs and applications. More generally, a new version of a software is not used as soon as installed. And even if removed from the hard disk I think that the old version will continue to work, as long as it stays in RAM. Of course there can be exceptions.

EDIT Pat was faster. Slow typer I was, slow typer I stay :(

Not for most users that's for certain, but the new generation of 'pointy, clicky, touchy' users might not get the advantage of the cli. Might hurt their pinkys having to do all that typing. :D

'pointy, clicky, touchy' from sysadmin side that is not slackware

Me, I'll always prefer the command-line. But let's say a client who lives 40 miles from here - and whose machine I can't access remotely - wants a certain app not included in Slackware. I'll just try to integrate it nicely, add it to my repo... and then tell the client to just perform a few clicks. That's the general idea.

Check out QTGZManager (there is a SlackBuild at slackbuilds.org). It is an interface to pkgtools (installpkg/upgradepkg/removepkg) and not slackpkg, but it does support patch updates from a Slackware mirror. I haven't tried it but it looks very nice. Of course, it requires Qt (but not KDE?), but I see your MLED tagfiles include Qt so it may work out of the box. As far as I know, it does not support additional repositories, so it wouldn't be a total solution. A script using Xdialog to call slackpkg may be your best bet if you can't find anything else (though Xdialog is obviously fairly limited in looks and functionality).

Not everyone wants to be a sysadmin. Some people like to actually do real work:twocents:

eugene is working with packagekit dev to integrate slackpkg with packagekit.
this might be intresting to following.

Thanks for the clarification. As you, I don't see a benefit of a GUI, either. I don't know about others, but I'm MUCH more comfortable running it from the command line.

A small patch to use kdialog instead dialog.

(apply it to /usr/libexec/slackpkg/functions.d)


Is not a real "GUI", but you will have a "window" :)

Isn't this patch a bit awkish? Nevermind, I like awk too :-)

I could certainly see a use for a GUI front end. I installed Slackware as a dual-boot on my sister-in-law's computer after Windows fell over again and again. They now use Slackware almost all the time but with me being 250 miles away sysadmin is tricky. So far I have to dropboxed packages to her that become required after building them here and providing detailed installation instructions via email (for instance Google Chrome was needed when the kids discovered that Club Penguin had added a new section not supported by or working in Firefox).

A slackpkg GUI would undoubtedly make the process a whole lot easier for them, especially if I could add the Dropbox folder as a repository. She could also do a quick updates check herself once a week too.

I know a GUI isn't the slackware way and I'm certainly not advocating a road to ubuntuisation. Just the odd GUI in the right area may help some users.

- thinking about it, wasn't someone building somethinglike this a couple of years ago? I'm sure I remember reading a thread in here where some sort of GUI package manager was being developed.