OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Applications

Graphical package management utility (Arca Noae)

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Martin Iturbide:
I was just reading Arca Noae's updated roadmap...


--- Quote ---Graphical package management utility

A user-friendly interface for managing rpm packages (and eventually, WarpIn archives) is currently in beta testing (December, 2014). The goal of this application is to ease some of the burden of keeping OS/2 systems up to date. It will be compatible with software repositories beyond Arca Noae, bringing value to all OS/2 and eComStation users, and will be distributed free of charge under GPLv3. By adding support for WarpIn archives, we get closer to attaining a single point of managing software and driver updates.

--- End quote ---

This will be very interesting and I'm looking forward to see how it works.

Regards

Mentore:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on December 21, 2014, 03:14:05 pm ---I was just reading Arca Noae's updated roadmap...


--- Quote ---Graphical package management utility

A user-friendly interface for managing rpm packages (and eventually, WarpIn archives) is currently in beta testing (December, 2014). The goal of this application is to ease some of the burden of keeping OS/2 systems up to date. It will be compatible with software repositories beyond Arca Noae, bringing value to all OS/2 and eComStation users, and will be distributed free of charge under GPLv3. By adding support for WarpIn archives, we get closer to attaining a single point of managing software and driver updates.

--- End quote ---

This will be very interesting and I'm looking forward to see how it works.

Regards

--- End quote ---

Quite interesting for me too. A "standard" installation interface would be a good add-on.

Mentore

Martin Iturbide:
It also made me wonder if this "Graphical package management utility" can also be used to make "Recommendation #5 – Installed Apps Shortcuts" a reality:

http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Comments_and_Suggestions_about_eComStation_User_Experience#Recommendation_.235_.E2.80.93_Installed_Apps_Shortcuts.

I'm not saying that my suggestion is a 100% right, but it can be interesting using the "Graphical package management utility" software to try to organize the shadows (shortcuts) of the OS/2 platform. My suggestion at that time was too focused on how Ubuntu organizes the "Programs Icons".

Dave Yeo:

--- Quote from: Martin Iturbide on January 03, 2015, 06:10:47 pm ---It also made me wonder if this "Graphical package management utility" can also be used to make "Recommendation #5 – Installed Apps Shortcuts" a reality:

http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Comments_and_Suggestions_about_eComStation_User_Experience#Recommendation_.235_.E2.80.93_Installed_Apps_Shortcuts.

I'm not saying that my suggestion is a 100% right, but it can be interesting using the "Graphical package management utility" software to try to organize the shadows (shortcuts) of the OS/2 platform. My suggestion at that time was too focused on how Ubuntu organizes the "Programs Icons".



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Currently the idea is just to allow graphically using the yum and warpin backends and interfacing the REXX and Python is harder then it first appears. Once version 1.x is released it might be worth making requests for extra features such as adding shortcuts. Of course with OS/2 users being much like cats, it may be better to just let people install their own shortcuts.

Doug Bissett:

--- Quote ---It also made me wonder if this "Graphical package management utility" can also be used to make "Recommendation #5 – Installed Apps Shortcuts" a reality:

http://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/Comments_and_Suggestions_about_eComStation_User_Experience#Recommendation_.235_.E2.80.93_Installed_Apps_Shortcuts.
--- End quote ---

Your collection of "shortcuts" demonstrates one of the main reasons why I use eCS. Why would anybody even consider some of those things?

Anyway, as Dave said, eCS users are like cats, you never know what they want to do next (and you, Martin, are one of the prime examples of that).

It is very easy to do what you seem to want. There are more ways to do it than I care to think about and each user will want to do it in a different way. Use your imagination, and just do it.

I have seen the graphical package management utility (still in development, and a final name has not been finalized). It is going to make YUM usable, but it isn't going to do miracles (although making YUM usable is close). It will also integrate WarpIn, and YUM to one interface (both need to be properly installed), but it isn't going to do anything that those two programs don't do, and that probably includes fix problems when they screw up (that can also include a badly packaged package). I can say, that the weakest link in the whole thing is YUM, which I find not surprising. Unfortunately, that is outside of the control of Arca Noae, and they have to live with it, until somebody else fixes the problems with it (apparently, highly unlikely).

Be aware, that installing YUM on an old system, will probably break things. One of the current problems, is that LIBC066 is not, yet, available in YUM (unless it was added today).

Anyway, the program will be released, once the main problems are resolved, and users can evaluate what it does then, and make suggestions for improvement, or additions. Speculating on what it will, or won't, do, before seeing it, is pointless.

By the way, while working with that, I discovered that RPM/YUM has a major problem, if you do not remove the installer, using WarpIn (stated as being optional in the instructions). Removing the installer also removes what is known as the YUM console. The problem is, that if you continue to use the YUM console (seems like a logical thing to do), after doing the initial YUM install, it uses the temporary (and now ancient) YUM package that is used to do the initial install. That can (and does) cause serious problems. After you remove the install package (including the YUM console), you use the standard command line to run YUM, and it uses the updated code. The graphical package manager should not have the problem, unless a user tries to run it from the YUM console.

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