Ubuntu

Including "popularity" of packages in repositories

Bug #112387 reported by Edmundo
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

This is not a bug exactly... but I don't know how to ask for a feature request... perhaps going "up" to debian would be a more appropiate place.

I was just reading an article of someone "complaining" about the massive options available to someone who just wants to install a "text editor" or a "medias player". How about being able to see how popular a package is among the repositories? That sounds like quite a change in the apt package management... but it could ease choosing the right package (at least the most popular) instead of looking at the 50 different packages available for each task. A colored bar in synaptic could be a hint.

Just a thought.

Revision history for this message
Michael Vogt (mvo) wrote :

Thanks for your bugreport.

Please try Applications/Add,Remove. It contains this feature.

Thanks,
 Michael

Revision history for this message
Emmet Hikory (persia) wrote :

There is some information about relative popularity of packages from http://popcon.ubuntu.com/, but there are only around 70,000 participants, of all the users of Ubuntu. Do you wish to request that synaptic use this information to generate the described coloured bar, or would you agree that it is perhaps skewed due to the small sample size?

Revision history for this message
Edmundo (eantoranz) wrote :

That is the thing, precisely. Instead of "voting" (I mean, making a manual operation), why not change the apt management system so that servers can keep track of the times each package has been requested and provide it so that apt managers (like synaptic or any other... even apt-get or apt-search) can display that information to users?

Packages like linux-image-generic will skyrocket and make any other package look pale... but when you have to choose among 15 editors, perhaps it's a good idea to see that kate, gedit, emacs, vim, nano and so on are above "axe" (not sure.. just a guess.. and just an example.. perhaps a lousy one).

Revision history for this message
Emmet Hikory (persia) wrote :

In order to properly support CD-based installations and updates, Ubuntu cannot track all installations of packages. Furthermore, tracking installations of packages for network repository users must be voluntary, in order to protect the privacy of users.

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