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Idea #17929: Its hard to know what are you installing

Written by albertolp the 8 Feb 09 at 19:26. Related project: Add/Remove program dialog. Status: New
Rationale
My problem is with games, but its applicable to all apps.

I have to install the program to know if its what i am looking for...

Lack of meaningful or standardize descriptions for applications. Its very informal

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votes
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Solution #1: standar description and snapshots/videos/animated gifs
Written by albertolp the 8 Feb 09 at 19:26.
Its ok that it uses informal language but...

I propose to standardize the descriptions.
I.e.:
- languages available
- dates (year of 1st release, date of 3 last updates)
- version
- history (when applicable)
- works fine with gonme/kde/xcf/others
- cli? gui?
- related guis availables
- task that be done with this
- supported formats (when applicable)
- useful paths for the application (where the * is the config file? where does it save data by default, etc...)
- is it dead? (ie. is there any known ppl/team working on it? related pages? last time the repository version was update?... etc...)
- description
- a liltle video of the application working (if applicable, ie. games) and date the snapshot/video was done
- ... some extra stuff that is only applicable to some application but can be useful to know (ie: related projects, or special trick for that application)

All this can be of course be turn on or off (i.e simple or advance. Maybe some + to see more information for the app)
9
votes
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Solution #2: Show the list of installed files without actually installing them
Written by Endolith the 8 Jun 09 at 14:09.
Occasionally I have a dependency that isn't installed, and I have to guess which package might hold that file, and then install it, in order to find out whether it actually does include that file. It would be better if it just showed the installed files in Synaptic without downloading the package.

Propose your solution

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Comments
dino wrote on the 9 Feb 09 at 14:42
supporting http://screenshots.debian.net/ would be the way to go i think.

Xepra wrote on the 9 Feb 09 at 16:56
+1 on the screenshots idea

In particular when installing server packages such as apache, jetty, tomcat, etc. it would be nice to know where they serve files from. (/var/www, /usr/share/jetty/webapps, etc)

jeypeyy wrote on the 9 Feb 09 at 20:20
I tried jaunty, looks like it will be implemented.

jacobuserasmus wrote on the 2 Mar 09 at 01:18
Yes I understand the problem completely. When installing software I never used before (specifically server apps) the installation process actually involve.

Searching for a application that have had some development done in recent months that have good support etc.

apt-get install application
dpkg -L application

To try and figure out where the config files lie what there format is etc. If this could be simplified with a help system or something similar in Synaptic whoa.

Of course number one would be a GUI interface to configure these apps.

Ryan Yo wrote on the 15 Mar 09 at 03:32
I think it would also be very useful to be able to post comments about the programs. This way you'd be able to read other people's experiences as well as find a better alternative if applicable.

waster wrote on the 26 Mar 09 at 12:52
Please do NOT include details about what programming language was used, or other technical details. This is completely unnecessary (unless it is a programming langauge itself), confusing, and can be found out easily be techy people by looking at the dependencies.

jamesisin wrote on the 4 Apr 09 at 20:09
Perhaps it would be most appropriate to include a link in each entry, or a button in Syaptic, which would take the user to an information page about that application on the Ubuntu site (for instance).

sidewinder12s wrote on the 20 Apr 09 at 04:04
Yes, I just started Using Ubuntu and i found this was one of the hardest things about the Package manager. You cant tell what your installing. I think it would make it a lot easier for people who are just switching over, it was really hard for games. since you dont know what the game is like.

delphiexile wrote on the 23 Apr 09 at 16:25
Why the idea is not applied yet while the 9.04 is released ???

OpenNingia wrote on the 30 Apr 09 at 15:02
maybe it will be implemented in 9.10 :/

delphiexile wrote on the 1 May 09 at 14:02
Sad to hear that !! Why , i was waiting for this idea in this version !!

jeypeyy wrote on the 3 May 09 at 22:27
At least there are screenshots now


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