Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04rc1
SIne UPR 10.04, they are using the own frontend for GnuPG. On this page, they want to publish it; it can be downloaded and used independently of UPR.
The reason why they started developing the own frontend was that some features of seahorse, the default frontend of Ubuntu, were not sufficient for UPR. GnuPG is mostly used for e-mail today; many mail clients offer good GnuPG support. Besides this, GnuPG is sometimes needed for verifying downloaded software. The feature to manually encrypt and decrypt files plays a minor role in most cases.
The way one works with UPR, however, makes this the most important feature. Here, seahorse lacks some details:
Navigate, sort and filter large keyrings
Make use of filenames embedded into encrypted files
Automatic packing and unpacking of multiple files during de- and encryption (seahorse can pack multiple files when encrypting, but not the other way round).
Check keys for validity before using them
The idea was implemented as a set of small python scripts which realized the individual functions (ecnryption, decryption, signing and so on) and are integrated into nautilus as nautilus-actions. Additionally, two small programs are used for making settings and managing key groups.
Key management is not delat with by the frontend, seahorse can still be used for that. One can also keep using seahorse as agent for passphrase caching. From the experience, the “original” gnupg agent is more stable, though, so it is used with UPR.
The python scripts call GnuPG from the command line, they are not using libgpgme. This library appeared too complex to us for this task.
The everyday use of these scripts is documented in the UPR manual. Here you can find the corresponding excerpt.
Ubuntu Privacy Remix 10.04rc1 Official website
Download link to the distribution ISO