I have been using ubuntu for quite some time, and I have ubuntu installed on 20+ computers at one time. I find myself always installing ubuntu on a different computer. One of the things that I always do is install some programs that don’t come stock with ubuntu like geany, or miro. At first I had a simple shell script that I ran that aptituded (lol) all the programs I wanted to install. But soon that was not enough because different computers had different uses and installing miro or gaim guifications on a work computer, or a computer that will be going back to a client is out of the question. Another thing I wanted was to updated the source.list file with new repositories cleanly. And so eventually that shell script involved into a python program.
I have spent a bit of my summer cleaning up that python program and the result is propensity (I looked for synonyms for aptitude) and now I figure its almost ready to be released into the public. I have uploaded both a deb file and the source to my website, and would love some feedback.
Some features that I would like to add before I release it are:
- I would like propensity to generate a standalone shell script that could be used to standalone install the package
- Icon
Splash screen- Ability to add your own programs and save them (so you can load them from a file at a later date) Thanks Ed
- Documentation
To sum up you can get the deb file here, and the source here. Thanks for any feedback you have.
Update 01: I made a post to the ubuntu forums and posted a screenshot
Update 02: I have been dugg.
Update 03: Propensity has only been tested on feisty.
earobinson 
Looks nice. Is there a way to customise my set of programs, as otherwise this could be a very personal menu.
by changing the files in /usr/etc/propensity/applicationData/ you should be able to do this. you could look at /usr/etc/propensity/applicationData/Utilities/Picasa.ixml for an example. If you have any problems feel free to contact me (earobinson@gmail.com) and I will try to explain it further.
In the future I will try to add this as a feature.
[…] Ability to add your own programs and save them (so you can load them from a file at a later date) Thanks Ed […]
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I’m not sure I see the advantage of using this over Automatix. Am I perceiving this wrongly? Or is this useful only for someone who wants to add the same applications to a number of computers?
myth47 I’m not exactly sure if the differences would affect you but propensity is simply a different tool that I used over automatix. I would say the main difference is that propensity dosent really install anything it just adds repositories to the sources.list file then uses aptitude to install them.
myth47 another diference:
On of the things I tried to do with propensity is add the repository for the programs that arnt in the ubuntu repository. eg if you install Opera or Miro it will add the repository needed that way you will get all the updated for those programs.
I tried to install it on Gutsy but doesn’t seem to work…
aad@aad-desktop:~$ propensity
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/propensity”, line 34, in
from elementtree.ElementTree import ElementTree
ImportError: No module named elementtree.ElementTree
arendm, thanks for the bug, hum I have only tested it in feisty, when you installed propensity it should have installed python-elementtree, if you could check if python-elementtree has been installed that would be great.
FYI propensity will detect the version of ubuntu that you are running and I have only added packages for feisty, I will post again when I test it with gusty.
Thanks again and sorry it dident work.
Not sure if it’s really needed. Like said above, there is automatix.
Just checked and python-elementtree is installed so that might not be it.
Good luck!
thanks arendm, I hope to install gusty and test it soon, it could be a problem with that package, I let you know.
It would not be a surpise if Gutsy is the problem and not Propensity, it’s still very beta ;-)
You can have different “profiles” stored in files and tell Synaptic to read those files (File -> Read selections) and mark them for installation. The files must be in the format:
package_name install
which is the file format dpkg –set-selections uses.
However, the feature to add repos from a file is not supported by Synaptic so your programa can be pretty usefull to add packages not in the default repos.
Keep the good work!
[…] vte.Terminal example About a week ago while working on propensity, I was trying to add an impeded terminal into the program instead of just sending commands to an […]
[…] v0.1.2.1906 — Now With an Icon! It has been about a week since I released Propensity into the wild for your feedback, I have gotten a fair bit of feedback and received a lot of help. You will also […]
[…] Now With an Icon! It has been about a week since I released Propensity into the wild for your feedback, I have gotten a fair bit of feedback and received a lot of help. You will also notice that I […]
[…] It has been about a week since I released Propensity into the wild for your feedback, I have gotten a fair bit of feedback and received a lot of help. You will also […]
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[…] Propensity es un programa para Ubuntu escrito en Python que utiliza el programa aptitude para permitir al usuario instalar desde una interfaz gráfica amigable paquetes que están en los repositorios predeterminados de Ubuntu pero no son instalados en la instalación o paquetes que se encuentran en repositorios de terceros. […]
[…] exactamente 2 semanas earobinson liberaba la versión 0.1.0.1772 de Propensity (y lo comentabamos acá) con una pedido de comentarios y sugerencias para mejorarlo. Hoy ha […]
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[…] a week ago while working on propensity, I was trying to add an impeded terminal into the program instead of just sending commands to an […]
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