Windows Networking sugests to install SMB suport, but the package is samba

[Curtis Hovey]

network-admin shows a dialog stating that I must install SMB support to turn on
Windows networking. There is no package named SMB in synaptic. The Samba
package does not actually say it provides Windows networking support. Some
guess work is need by the average user to install this feature.

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Changing the string involves changing the translations, but I don't know how we
can translate the new strings in more than 50 language...
Another solution would be to add a button to the error dialog that would install
the package...

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

I played a bit with synaptic and it seems we can use this command to install samba:

echo samba i | synaptic --set-selections --non-interactive

So we could add a button "Install" that launch synaptic to install samba. What
do you think?

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I played a bit with synaptic and it seems we can use this command to install
samba:
>
> echo samba i | synaptic --set-selections --non-interactive
>
> So we could add a button "Install" that launch synaptic to install samba. What
> do you think?

Neat, I didn't know synaptic had this functionality. We could do the same thing
for installing ntp-simple from the clock preferences, perhaps.

--set-selections doesn't seem to be documented yet. :-) Michael, is this the
right way? Or do you think you will add a different interface in the future?

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Yes, it's a supported feature of synaptic. Connectiva uses it in there installer
for example.
I will have to document it though :) It should be compatible with dpkg
--get-selections and
with the synaptic menu item "save selections". But it's nice for installing
packages like this
too. As a side-note, there is also a "--upgrade-mode" ("refresh" and "mark
upgrades") that can
be combined with "--non-experimental" for the adventurous type ;)

bye,
 Michael

P.S. I'll fill a bug against synaptic to document this stuff.

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Created an attachment (id=293)
Proposed patch

If this looks okay, I'll add some code to install ntp-simple too.

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Everyone will have noticed that it should not be the pinball packages that get
installed.
Please do s/pinball/samba/ in the diff :-)

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Created an attachment (id=295)
Updated patch

Small update to make it possible to use the new stuff to install ntp-simple.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The patch works fine, but synaptic doesn't ...

$ echo samba i | synaptic --set-selections --non-interactive
=> I get a window with:

"You have 1 broken package on your system!

Use the "Broken" filter to locate it."

apt-get install samba works fine

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Is it the samba package that is marked as broken? And what happens if you try to
install
samba with synaptic by hand? Is it marked as broken as well? My test worked, but
I have a
pretty much stock install of ubuntu.

thanks,
 Michael

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Is it the samba package that is marked as broken?

No, idea, I'm using "echo samba i | synaptic --set-selections --non-interactive"
so it just ends after the errors.
In fact the bug was due to a mix between unstable and warty packages, that's
fixed now, sorry for the noise

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Created an attachment (id=305)
Updated patch

Two changes:
  * don't look for synaptic in the path, but specify the full path to the
binary. Looks more secure that way.
  * don't add the "Install smb support" if synaptic is not available.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The patch works fine here. Do we want to use it now ... Matt, Jeff ?

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

It's awfully tempting. but I think this should really wait until after the Warty
release. After that, I'm happy for it to be merged in immediately.

Please revert the hardcoded path to synaptic, by the way; searching PATH is the
right thing to do here. If g-s-t is running programs as root without sanitizing
the environment, then it has much bigger problems, and that should be fixed at
that level

[Vincent Untz (vuntz)]

Created an attachment (id=321)
Updated patch

> Please revert the hardcoded path to synaptic, by the way; searching PATH is
the
> right thing to do here.

Done.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Now that Warty is released, feel free to integrate this patch in your next upload

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

 gnome-system-tools (1.0.0-0ubuntu8) hoary; urgency=low
 .
   * debian/patches/16_install_smb.dpatch:
     - patch by Vincent Untz <email address hidden> to add the function to install
       a package with a button. Use that to add a button to install samba
       (Hoary: #1739).