[Synaptic-devel] gsynaptic & synaptic sudden shutdown

[Richard]

Am using SuSE 8.0, apt 0.5.4, and gsynaptic 0.21-3cl.  The interface is very 
nice but has a couple of un-nice things happening.
1. At the end of an upgrade attempt sometimes synaptic will shutdown without 
warning.  It usually happens when the upgrade is unsuccessful, but has 
happened after a successful upgrade.   I can not discern any pattern to the 
shutdowns. The shutdown occurrs with both synaptic and gsynaptic.

2.  When an upgrade is unsuccessful the only error message is a rather 
cryptic:
Sub process /bin/rpm returned an error code (244)
the error code has been a 2, 14, and 16.
If I run the command line: apt-get upgrade, after the failure I can see the 
reason for the failures.  That data should be displayed by synaptic so you 
can figure out what to do. Error codes are nice but only if you can translate 
them into meaningful words.  

I have some suggestions concerning some cosmetic changes that would make the 
GUI easier to be understood.  Since most people will not wait for the popup 
to tell them what the various buttons are for, I would:

a) Rename the Update button to something like  Get Update List or Load Update 
List.   What it actually does is retrieve the available update list, right? 
To the unwashed Update means just that and is confusing especially with 
Upgrade next to it.
b) Rename Upgrade button to something like, Select All to Upgrade, or Select 
All for Upgrading since it is only selecting those installed apps to be 
upgraded.

As I understand it, the GUI is intended to make the use of an application easy 
and intuitive and lessen errots.  While these two changes are minor, cosmetic 
changes, they can make life a lot easier for the user and reduce questions to 
the developer.

Having said all that, I want you to know that I really appreciate this version 
of synaptic.  It has made the use of apt much nicer.  
Thank you
ra