Keryx 1.0 to have multi project feature - a sneak peek into its pre-alpha release and future plans

A few days ago we told you about this great offline management utility for debian based systems - keryx. The latest stable release is 0.92.4, but in order to bring some new features and better integration with Ubuntu, the lead developer - Chris Oliver is writing the v1.0 from scratch. Chris told us about his plans for the next release and it seems he has a lot in mind. Along with it we will take a quick look into the pre-alpha release of v1.0.

For those who are not aware of Keryx - This tool helps you maintain a debian/ubuntu based system not connected to Internet. Using it you can keep the offline system updated as well as install new softwares on it.

Upcoming Features

• The major being the facility to handle multiple projects. This one is evident from the pre-alpha release.

• Shifting to GTK: The current stable release and prior versions were written in wxpython. Since it might not be pre-installed on the offline systems, the dependency issue was resolved by creating a bulky linux binary. Basically, instead of a few hundred KB source, one had to use a 12 MB binary. Because of this issue, the new release is being developed in GTK, possibly removing the dependency issue completely and improving compatibility with most of the Linux systems.
• A command-line interface: This is for both who prefer a console or have some trouble running the interface.
• Installation of debian packages through keryx. Using it one can install individual .deb packages too through keryx. No need to run dpkg separately from terminal.

Many of you might not know that Keryx is not the first tool to address this offline management issue, there have been a few, but the features that sets it apart from the rest are:

• Its probably the first one to come up with a GUI making it easier to be used by a new user.
• The way it addresses specific issues - update, package installation and now multi-project management and installation from individual deb packages.

Something like this is really needed in the standard Ubuntu/Debian repository. Since keryx is in a pre-alpha stage and most of the source is being re-written, if you have anything in mind, don't hesitate to contribute and make this tool better.