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• What is the relationship between AppCenter and PackageKit? Aren't they both trying to solve the same problems? Is this just another case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here syndrome, or do they serve drastically different purposes?

• I´ve got an Idea related to the AppCenter and the new project UbuntuOne. Maybe it ís a good idea to combine those projects with the possibilty of saving all installed apps within a UbuntuOne-account and its webspace. So when the user adds a programm via the AppCenter it could be saved in it and in UbuntuOne. The Advantage of it could be, that when the user is on another Ubuntu PC he could synchronize those 2 (or more) Computers and all it´s installed apps. (It just has to save the softwarelist in the Ubuntu-One, the rest could be done by the AppCenter) If i put this idea a little further it could also synchronize the settings of the programms in the home folder of the user and on Ubuntu-One.

• What isn't mentioned in this specification is how AppCenter will handle devel libraries. While making things easier for users it shouldn't come at the cost of developers who often need to get the devel libraries of packages and use synaptic to do it. This should be added as a use case/User story to the spec. [Luc-Ace]

* Could "Hardware drivers" be replaced too? Greg Auger (fluteflute)

For updates to be less intrusive to the user

• From an idea proposed by David Siegel , And further expanding it....

• When the user receives the updates notification,user "chooses to download & Install the packages" ,

• Installation of Updates the dont require restart are done immediately,
• Before starting the installation of package+dependencies, which requires a restart, the user is warned that this particular package requires a reboot.
• User either chooses, "install now" or "during next boot" .
  • For good implementation of this, updates need to be clearly marked as
    • 1:security

    • 2:critical>solves a major crash/freeze issue of the package / major improvement of package responsiveness

    • 3:non-critical>minor tweaks to performance

So when the user is presented with the update requiring reboot,he is told that [1]"This update solves a crash/freeze problem seen in this package/Gives you major improvement of package responsiveness" [2] "This update is a non-critical update" [3] "This is a security Update"

• So the user decides , if he has the problem, he can do the update immediately... If not, delay it for the next boot.
• If the user later decides to update before the reboot, he should be able to do so from the update manager, where a reminder says"Install pending updates".
• The same can be done for the firefox updates too... download the updates when the user accepts and since it requires restart of the browser , WAIT till the browser is closed and then install the updates. So no need to restart the browser.
• When the user has chosen not to download updates , These notification repeat again at a later time[10mins/30mins/1hr/4hrs/1day/7days],which the user chooses from a drop-down menu and if the user tries to shutdown before updating he is reminded again via the same notifications. --- [mac_v]

• I think it's a very good idea : for myself i have a similar project based on packagekit using Qt4.5 and DBus, but it is not very advanced for the moment but it will be soon. You could take some idea for design at : http://modern-os.projects.servhome.org/img_viewer.php?image=projects/interface/package-man.png its a mockup i've made months ago, and i will yet improve it cause i'm already working on a second mockup more precise and then taking a look about whzt i can do in Qt with DBus. Regards, TheBootroo, ModernOS Projects Team.

• "For good implementation of this, updates need to be clearly marked as" <- I do not see the reasoning behind this, only a need to copy PackageKit-specific thing. There are two types of updates a user is interested in I believe - security, and non-security. Security you do now, non-security, you can do whenever. Just as it is currently done. -- vperetokin 2009-06-19 21:51:51

• @ vperetokin > Why clearly marking is essential is> Critical updates>solves a major crash/freeze issue of the package.... So marking them as critical they can be displayed to the user immediately as is done for the security updates, as several users might be waiting for the critical updates,[fixes for a graphics card/firefox memory leaks/gedit cpu usage] as you can see that these are non-security updates , but since they help the user experience , it would be better to notify the user earlier that these improvements are available, rather than wait the 7 days to notify them as is done now... Isnt it better to solve the problems which clearly affect the system performance asap rather than wait for 7 days?, by which time the user, might loose work/have unpleasant graphics performance... This is a more important concern right now,since AFAIC security problems are VERY rare in linux , while freezes/crashes are more common... Keep in mind the REGULAR user NEVER notices any benefit from the security updates but will almost always observe the benefits of the critical updates... These dramatically improve the user experience, the most important aspect for the regular-users. While the non-critical updates can be notified at leisure in 7 days. -- [mac_v]

• @artir > I have a small proposal for the AppCenter Right now, it pops out a window each time I click on update It shpuld be better to display the loading bar inside the app like this http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6358/pantallazojpb.png the buttons would be replaced by that bar when u click on update