[packagekit] Plugin Interface for Backends, Hooks for Backends

[Gerion Entrup]

Hi,

I have the situation that I want to use Gentoo on a tablet with low 
performance. Gentoo normally compiles everything which is absolutely not 
possible on that device. Because of that, I have configured Portage (the Gentoo 
package manager) to use a binary host (another much more powerful PC), where I 
cross compile the packages into binary packages first.
So my package installation in total works as follows:
1. Decide which package should be installed.
2. Trigger the build process on the binary host.
3. Install the packages locally (as binary packages).

This tablet has no (real) keyboard but touch, so doing this per command line 
is hard. PackageKit with Discover comes to the rescue here.
The problem is that – while there is a Portage backend – it is not able to 
trigger the building on the binary host (mainly because Portage itself is not 
able to do this).

My question here is: What are my best options to get this to work regardless?
- Does PackageKit has some kind of plugin backend API? So, put a script with a 
determined interface somewhere and PackageKit can use it as backend.
- Are there some "hooks" in the existing backends or the PackageKit root 
functions? So can I place a script somewhere so that PackageKit executes some 
arbitrary commands before or after using the regular backend?
- Do I have to modify the Portage backend?

Best,
Gerion
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