GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 737514
gnome-software doesn't list sources, says "No sources found."
Last modified: 2015-03-25 20:39:17 UTC
Gnome-Software application mostly look ok when you open it, it also automatically check for updates and notify the user (I use yum... so it showed updates available after I already installed them (I understand this is normal... in some cases ...) refresh worked fine, then shows that system is up-to-date, software is listed/searchable inside the application, so I assume it "connects" to the PackageKit ... But when you try to go to app-menu > Software Sources, it says "No sources found." I tried to look for existing bug report on rh bugzilla and here, but I wasn't able to find any related, so I filed new report. I'm using fedora 21 with latest updates, 3.14.0 ... gnome-software-3.14.0-1.fc21.x86_64
"No sources found." is not very helpful indeed. Looks like it's just a placeholder for an unimplemented design -- we should be showing https://github.com/gnome-design-team/gnome-mockups/blob/master/software/version2/software-source-dialog-no-sources.png instead. This should make it much clearer that the dialog is for editing _additional_ sources and that it being empty is not a bug when only the base distro repos are enabled.
*** Bug 735751 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 287785 [details] [review] sources dialog: Improve the error when no sources are found
Attaching the patch here until after we branch for 3.16. Suggestions welcome how to phrase the text when we don't have access to the <distro> name. screenshot: https://kalev.fedorapeople.org/gnome-software-software-sources-no-sources.png
It turned out /etc/os-release parsing was quite easy. Attaching another version that does that and figures out the currently running OS name.
Created attachment 287786 [details] [review] sources dialog: Improve the error when no sources are found
What about telling the truth, i.e., listing *all* sources including the core ones but disabling the user from removing the core sources? I agree with bitlord that it's surprising that we can install, upgrade and remove software but we have no sources and I guess this was what he meant.
That would be an OK solution too, but I think the mockup's approach is the best. We have a really fine line to walk between allowing third-party software sources and giving them the same status as system sources, and not presenting system sources in this dialog helps us stay on the "third-party sources are inherently different" side of the line.
I don't mean to give the third-party sources the same status as the system sources because the system sources should be non-removable. On the other hand, if you browse the details of a single application you have "Source: Fedora" (or whatever is your distro) but if you check a list of the sources there is no such source.
Looks like this fell through the cracks :-(
Indeed, this totally fell through the cracks. Luckily we've just branched for 3.16, so it was a good time to push this. Attachment 287786 [details] pushed as e2f50b5 - sources dialog: Improve the error when no sources are found