Elliot’s Blog

Over the past couple of months I have been working on the conary backend to PackageKit, a dbus abstraction for package management. Today the first version was released for public consumption. PackageKit is now shipping as part of Foresight Linux if anyone wants to try it out.

What this means for users:

This gives users a generic interface for managing software on their system. Makes it easier for users to install applications because they can be sorted by the same topics that exist in menus. Provides an abstraction layer for requesting software by generic names.

What this means for developers:

Application developers now have a generic interface for requesting package installs. This could be useful for applications that use plugins like firefox, mplayer, and totem.

For more information see the packagekit.org.

It seems like being an open source developer these days requires knowing something about web development and design. I am trying to setup some personal bits like a blog, wiki, gallery, and planet and I would like them all to have something of a similar theme. Everyone out there seems to have themes for each, but I can’t seem to find any cross project themes.

If only there were a good way to have a similar look and feel across web applications without spending lots of time tweaking css here and there and checking for browser compatibility. Anyone know of any cross application themes or an easier way of pulling this off?