sqlite3-debversions

I created a small extension for sqlite3 today to allow order by debian version easily. This allows writing:

.load "./debversions.so";
SELECT * FROM packages ORDER BY version COLLAT debversion_compare;

And it will do the right ordering. Its available on launchpad.

Software-center gtk3 edition

As OMGUbuntu already posted here the software-center team is working on a gtk3 version that implements a new GUI design. Thanks to the team and especially the wonderful Matthew McGowan we now have the gtk3 version mostly working. Its part of the normal software-center packages as of version 4.1.12. It installs alongside the current gtk2 software-center. For now gtk2 is still the default, but if you run “software-center-gtk3″ on a oneiric system you will get the new UI (and all the new bugs)

New apt hits oneiric

I just uploaded a new apt to oneiric. Its a ABI break so there will be short time that the archive is in a state of churn while the packages are rebuild against the new ABI. But the good news is that apt finally got dpointers so we will require less ABI breaks in the future. Plus we moved the library into a proper library package making the transitions much easier from now on.

apt-clone

In natty we got a new tool called “apt-clone”. Its a commandline application that can be used to clone the packages state of a system and restore it on another system. It will save the full state (sources.list, packages/versions installed, auto-installed inforrmation) and optionally using dpkg-repack in order to save not/no-longer downloadable package (like debs that got installed manually via e.g. gdebi or dpkg -i). The file is pretty small because it just stores references to the files in the archive. One nice feature of the restore is that it can be applied to a different root directory (creating a chroot). I use this to reproduce upgrade issues and its really handy for this. Whats missing currently is modified conffiles detection, but there is some work on this in trunk.

update-manager & unity

I merged a branch from Bilal Akhtar for update-manager the other day to add unity quicklist support (thanks Bilal!). While at it I added the updates count to the launcher too. Small change, but I really like it

Software-center & weblive

There is another cool feature in software-center in natty that I would like to show today. If you have the package “qtnx” (in universe) installed you will be able to “test-drive” a lot of the available applications in software-center without having to actually install them. They are run via the NX protocol on a remove server with pretty good speed. Its all possible thanks to Stéphane Grabers Weblive.

This is what it loks like (notice the “Test drive” button below the screenshot):

And here what happens when I press test-drive and its connected (connecting takes about a minute currently).

The apt mirror method

A pretty nice (but not much known) piece in apt is the “mirror” method that will automatically select a good mirror based on your location. Putting:
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt natty main restricted universe multiverse
on the top in your sources.list should be all that is needed to make it automatically pick a mirror for you based on your geographical location. With the recent apt upload some issues (mostly in the UI) have been fixed and it should be in good shape now. Feedback for this feature is welcome!

apt-btrfs-snapshot

One of the new features in natty is the “apt-btrfs-snapshot” package. Its for people who use a btrfs install of natty. Once installed it will automatically create filesystem snapshot (of everything but /home) when apt installs/removes/upgrades. With the apt-btrfs-snapshot cli app its easy to list/remove/rollback the snapshots. Its build on top of the btfs snapshot feature and will work out of the box with the filesystem layout that a natty alpha3 btrfs install creates.

Ratings&reviews “Was this review helpful?”

The software-center team is happy to announce that the “was this review useful” feature can now be used. Its in the code since a while, but it was not visible because the server had a bug in the data returned. This is fortunately fixed now This will also influence the sorting of the reviews (helpful reviews appear first). Aaron Peachey made the client happen. And the unstoppable Matthew McGowan did great UI work.

Ratings&reviews in software-center

Ratings&reviews support for software-center has landed last night in natty. A important step for us, thanks for all who were involved and a special thanks to our friends from the ISD team who made the server part of this work ready to rock.

Showing the overview page with ratings