#Discover can't find package that native package manager can

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PS /home/rokejulianlockhart> zypper search hardinfo
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S | Name                 | Summary                                | Type
--+----------------------+----------------------------------------+-----------
  | hardinfo             | Displays system information            | srcpackage
  | hardinfo             | Displays system information            | package
  | hardinfo-debuginfo   | Debug information for package hardinfo | package
  | hardinfo-debugsource | Debug sources for package hardinfo     | package
PS /home/rokejulianlockhart>

Any idea what’s going on here?

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on my kubuntu at the bottom left of the discover window is a think called settings where you can select and add repos.

when i search for hardinfo it finds the installed package in the GUI

when i search using apt list hardinfo i get the following

Listing... Done
hardinfo/jammy,now 0.5.1+git20180227-2.1build1 amd64 [installed]

my guess is that yast and apt are different enough that discover is not in sync with yast in the same way it is with apt.

3

Considering that I can find other packages, I’m uncertain what that might mean. Additionally, *SUSE’s PM is zypper, not yast.

How have you managed to get the git version via your package manager, @skyfishgoo? I’m stuck on the supposedly 10-year-old releases (Show openSUSE:Factory / hardinfo - openSUSE Build Service).

4

When launching discover, it does indeed initially not present the native PM’s repositories

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but after a few seconds loads them

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Additionally, it’s still polled over 1000 updates, which must mean that it possesses access to the native PM

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since refreshing works, and because it can present others

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Discover is an app store, not a full-featured package manager, it isn’t designed to show all individual packages, nor most command-line tools. I also believe it depends on a package having correct metadata included, and this particular package may be missing this on your distro.

This is the normal Ubuntu 22.04 package, which looks to be the latest git pull at one point, back in 2018.

If your distro’s package is really that old, then it seems likely to be missing the metadata that packagekit/discover/gnome software needs to show this application. Some software applications don’t show in *buntu for similar reasons.

2 Likes
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I see. An application needs AppStream metadata to be presented via discover?

How come it can show non-AppStream application metadata in the updates tab, then, @claydoh?

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7

I don’t know why the updater shows all (it probably is just displaying a list that the system’s native package manager shows as upgrade-able) , but it would be silly not to list all the updates, even if they are just system libs and such.

But the search and display portion only shows apps that have more than just a basic description, via appstream metadata. Discover and Gnome Software are not intended or designed to be full-featured package managers, like Synaptic, Pamac, or Yast.

This is an intentional design choice.

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Think you could elaborate at Why does Discover only show applications with AppStream metadata?? It’s really difficult to believe that that could be so, considering that even the Microsoft Store and Google Play Store allow their users to view dependency packages like the MSIX VS C++ runtimes, or Android System WebView packages, respectively.

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https://userbase.kde.org/Discover#What_Discover_isn’t

Each distro has its own native applications available for advance management tasks.

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apologies, i googled zypper package manager and saw a lot of hits for yast, and just jumped to the conclusion.

this is pretty much a bone stock kubuntu, i’ve added the backports repo tho… so maybe that’s how.

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Discover - KDE UserBase Wiki

Discover is made for usage - it was made to be intuitive.

I’m not sure it achieves this, but thanks for the link.