Comment 6 for bug 1076832

I've addressed a small part of this in the design specification for the "Software & Updates" settings: it should use the standard aptdaemon status text and error handling. So if Synaptic has locked apt or dpkg, the status text should be "Waiting for other tasks to complete…", and if it's still locked after 30 seconds, an alert explaining that "System Settings can’t install or remove software until synaptic exits.". (I don't know whether this alert is actually implemented in aptdaemon yet.)
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareAndUpdatesSettings?action=diff&rev2=21&rev1=19>

I'm not concerned with the design of Synaptic, but Robert's suggestion makes sense to me.