[packagekit] Improved pkt tool

Tom Parker palfrey at tevp.net
Fri Sep 7 06:12:53 PDT 2007


I've been recently playing around with an improved version of the pkt 
tool (see tools/pkt.py). I'd originally built it as a one-shot "I want 
something to test the apt backend without needing the full graphical 
interface" tool, but I've been thinking about it as a possible 
replacement for my main uses of apt-get/apt-cache/etc. 99% of the time, 
I just want to install a couple of programs, or find something that 
might do some task, or pretty much the use-cases for PackageKit.

There are three good reasons for wanting to build a command-line tool 
like this, given the existence of perfectly good graphical ones
1) I don't use the graphical apt tools (except for aptitude, which as an 
ncurses-based thing, barely counts) currently, and I think even with 
really good graphical tools I'd probably still mostly use the command 
line ones.
2) It gives us an example client that we can distribute with PackageKit 
without annoying either the Gnome or KDE people.
3) It should be easy enough to build a "simple" client that can be used 
as an example for builders of more complicated (possibly graphical) clients.

I've attached my local WIP version to this email to get some feedback, 
and eventual target is that it handles a reasonable subset of the 
apt-get/apt-cache style install/search/show/etc commands, which I'm 
going to keep adding to as and when I get them working on the apt 
backend. It's been renamed from "pkt.py" to just "pkt" (some random 
shrinking of PackageKit, more-or-less).

Comments? This is *not* intended to replace the graphical client 
programs, but as a complement to them.

Tom
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