The second package for 2006, Package Aide for Debian, has been released. This is a GUI user-friendly app for managing packages on a Debian system. Screenshot available. Includes a quick-start desktop icon for KDE (separate file). Written in python/Tkinter. Not meant to replace more sophisticated tools such as Synaptic or the command line, but it provides an easy interface to get information and get things done, often with just a few clicks. Features include:
Downloading and installing debs with or without apt. Quite a few informational buttons which spawn an xterm with various information.
It can connect directly to an ftp server using the file manager, and you can drag .debs directly onto your hard drive in GUI mode. It also auto-researches package names on the Debian site. You can auto-pin a package on your system to your current version, to prevent it from being updated. Also acts as a front-end for several apt and dpkg commands (apt-get, dpkg remove/purge, etc.) You can edit your sources.list or pinning prefs directly from the app using KWrite or vi, auto-add sarge & marillat sources, choose an international mirror for ftp, etc., view/clean your apt-cache, add a debian CD as a source, dist-upgrade your system, etc. Hope you find it to be a useful tool, saving a lot of legwork and command-line chores.