[nmglug] Easy Ubuntu

[Sam Noble]

On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 10:06 -0700, Tim Emerick wrote:
> I think you might be talking about Automatix.  It's fairly
> controversial.  I used it myself on my breezy install and it worked
> great.  My Breezy works even better than it already did.
> 
> You can search the ubuntuforums for "automatix tutorial" and find it.
> The one spot I had problems with was the instruction to wget the
> actual automatix .deb.  Surf to the website in the instructions and
> get the name of the current/latest .deb and substitute that filename
> for the one in the tutorial.
> 
> Here's a review for your use.
> 
> http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/12/209257
> 
> Tim
> 
> Brian O'Keefe <okeefe at cybermesa.com> wrote:
>         Does anyone know about the Easy Ubuntu download? I hear that
>         it works
>         both for ppc and Dapper and solves all the plug-in issues
>         regarding
>         media, etc. I will try to remember to bring it up thursday.

Automatix and Easy Ubuntu are similar (and related) projects to automate
installation of "stuff".

Automatix Forum
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77
Easy Ubuntu Forum
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=86

There are two issues you should know about, regarding these.

The first is that there is some history of these scripts borking
systems, hopefully that's all gone by now. It's worth noting that
'arnieboy' of Automatix presents himself in a seriously uncooperative
kind of way, and petulantly refused to consider some pretty sound advice
regarding more judicious use of --force options for dpkg and apt in
early versions of automatix.
(Not finding links to this, right now. But they're out there.)

The second is that these scripts gloss over the issues that cause these
packages to not be included in the first place.
Some packages and codecs are not installed because they are patent
encumbered. Those of us who are dedicated to running Free Software often
aren't concerned about the repercussions of infringing some patent since
the odds of Fraunhaufer, Microsoft, or anyone caring about our one
machine is very slight compared to the problems it could cause Canonical
or other GNU/Linux distributors to overtly disregard the issue and ship
infringing software. (Or some people may even feel that it is they're
responsibility to flagrantly disregard software patents.)
Other software installed by these scripts is simply not Free Software.
When you install browser plugins from Sun or Macromedia, or you choose
to use video drivers that are not Free, you've made a very significant
choice. You've decided that even though an entire Free operating system
and a wealth of Free applications has been shared with you in a spirit
of neighborliness, you're going to stack on top of that software that
restricts the community the community that shared with you.
So my point is that I'm not a fan of some python script that blindly
goes installing a mix of these two different classes of software not
shipped by GNU/Linux distros. However, that said, it looks like Easy
Ubuntu does a pretty good job of giving the user fine-grained control of
which stuff they want.
http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/overview.html

So as always,
Make your own choice!