PackageKit

Time for another rant. It's a short one: PackageKit needs to be configurable. PackageKit is a good thing, in my opinion - it makes installation of packages much more flexible, for instance, users can install packages directly from web pages simply by clicking on links and authenticating. I particularly like the command-not-found functionality: when a user issues a command that isn't installed on the machine, their shell informs them which package should be installed to use this command and can offer to install the package there and then. Nice.

However. All this is directed rather specifically to a single use-case of the machine: the home desktop user. Home users probably want to have most updates automatically install, and to be able to install packages with a single click on  a web page. In the office environment, this is not always so desirable - automatic updates might be, but perhaps only security updates. Users installing arbitrary packages without authentication, certainly not. In fact, anything that might require authentication should be disabled, as users will almost certainly not have root access to their machines.

One answer is to uninstall PackageKit completely, but it does have some useful features. I have altered the command-not-found function to inform users that they should email the administrators requesting the package to be installed. This makes the system a little more friendly, which is only a good thing. The other, much better, answer is to allow thorough configuration of PackageKit. At the moment all you can do is specify which network devices/daemons to use, specify timeouts and bandwidth usage, and a few other little tweaks. I need to be able to allow automatic updates without authentication, but disable all references to installing new packages. That shouldn't be difficult, it should be easy.