aper - persistant "unsigned software" notifications

[tomcloyd]

I don't use aper. I cannot stand this piece of software, and cannot fathom why it has become the default for software updates. Its interfaces suggest that its designers expect that we users want virtually no information about what we're doing, then suddenly we're pestered by more information than is even usable. It's the second problem that brings me to write. As I say, I don't use aper - when it tells me I have updates, I fire up Synaptic and get exactly what I want: accessible information of all sorts, sensible options, efficient operation. If I could switch out aper for Synaptic I'd do it in a New York minute.

With aper, because of some repositories I have to use to get the software I need, I get absolutely endless messages telling me:

You are about to install unsigned packages that can compromise your system, as it is impossible to verify if the software came from a trusted source.
Are you sure you want to proceed with the installation?

Actually, I do, which is why I requested installation in the first place!

In this case, I'm trying to install the new opera browser update. Never mind that it is nonsense that this is "impossible to verify if this software came from a trusted source" - why am I getting, for ONE application, endless messages - all saying the same thing? Actually I don't want to know. I just want it to stop. You ought to see what happens when I try to install any update, much less several, for the statistical language R, from the CRAN repository at Berkeley (another renegade source, apparently). aper goes absolutely nuts, but not before I do.

I cannot find any way to modify this behavior. If software is going to do this to a user, surely it ought to provide a convenient way to allow us to tell it to permanently shut up. I see none. Whose idea of good design is this, anyway?

I'm just curious. If anyone can shed any light on any of this, I'd be grateful.

As an aside - this is my first post on the new forum software. Looks nice, but what's with the stripped down interface? Are we all idiots now? Is formatting a thing of the past? If there's a way to do it, why isn't it made obvious? I can do no better than quote the inimitable Steve Krug: "Don't make me think", dammit. I suppose formatting IS possible, but I'm going to have to go searching for information somewhere to get any info. about that at all. More apparently bad design. None of this is user friendly.

[Snowhog]

All you have to do is to click on the My Profile link in the upper-right corner of the page, and then click on General Settings and go down the page to Miscellaneous Options and check Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing and click the Save button at the bottom of the page. Done.

[tomcloyd]

Thanks for the reply to my "aside" - which completely resolves THAT problem.

Now, about the aper issue - is there any fix for the message-harrassment to which I refer? Is this happening only to me?

I'm surprised that there's no comment re: the radical interface simplification issue. To my mind, this is an extreme version of the general trend we've seen in websites - few options, more automaticity. Any day now I expect to see just buttons with symbols. Reading not required...

[SteveRiley]

Muon is the graphical package manager that will come with Kubuntu Precise. Recently it's received a number of welcome updates; the latest version is 1.3.0. It behaves similarly to Synaptic.

You can add it to Oneiric:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:echidnaman/qapt
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install muon

Once you've done that, you can remove Apper, PackageKit, and KPackageKit.

[tomcloyd]

Great. Well worth a try. Didn't know I could do this, and I appreciate the info. A while back, I was hoping Muon would take the helm, but then it just kept hanging when doing installs, for weeks, and I gave up on it and have been using Synaptic for a long time 'cause it's utterly reliable. Off to get the new Muon. Anything's better than that pesky, dumb aper thing.