[desktop-discuss] New project: JPack - install your software easily !

[Paul Gress]

Michal Pryc wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I would like to announce a new project called JPack, which will provide
> a GUI application for managing different types of packages for Solaris
> Operating System.
>
> for more information:
>
> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/jds/tasks/jpack/
>
> and
>
> http://blogs.sun.com/migi/entry/jpack_install_your_software_easily
>
> Please let me know what do you think about it.
>
>   
This looks great to me.
I also like the idea of plugins for other package systems (such as 
sunfreeware).

Some of my ideas for improvement are:

CSW packages.  If I want to install, can it scan the web to list 
available packages.  Then this is the big one, for its dependencies can 
it scan all available libraries and place a link in CSW lib to location 
of an alternate dependency.

Maybe this can be a good start to alleviate the dependency nightmare.

Maybe there can be a search engine, so I can search for a particular 
package and it would search all available package repositories, 
including source and from plugins then give me a choice how and where I 
would like to install it.

Also what would be a nice feature is if a package is missing a 
dependency or a package is corrupt an explanation point in a yellow 
triangle would appear next to the package to indicate it is in need of 
repair (prodreg does this with corrupt packages).

I noticed at the bottom it says "You are not root, you cannot add/delete 
packages"  Maybe you can add a password manager like in Firefox to 
automatically add login, or a setup for sudo, or just a plain login to root.


Paul