thelinuxlink.net

Pretty soon I'll have a new ubuntu system (yes, I know, the superior OS of superior OS's). I am used to setting up all my repositories manually and grabbing the packages that I want either through synaptic or using apt. I am thinking about giving automatix a shot and was wondering if there are any downsides to using it.

I haven't used it personally, but a guy I work with insists on installing it on every `buntu box we install for him, and all of those boxes eventually end up b0rk3d. This could be coincidence, but I've seen several other reports of system breakage with automatix. And let's face it, 'buntu isn't anything like slack or arch where you're building a system from a bash prompt - it's all installed for you, more or less.

I haven't had any issues with automatix. Whenever I'm ready to upgrade to the next release of the distro I simply comment out any references to non-official repos. Then simply install the next version of automatix for that release. Zero issues.

I've tended to give up on in place upgrades. I usually have a dedicated separate disk for /home and perform a little diligence in keeping track of any changes to global configs. With those two things I just reinstall every six months and automatix is pretty valuable in getting up to speed quickly. Ive never had a problem within a six month period using it.

I've used Automatix, though I always choose to return to the sources list to its previous state after running it. That and using Ubuntu's upgrade script actually worked quite well for me for the Edgy update, though hellonorman's practice of keeping track of config files is a good idea for any upgrade. I do keep a backup of /etc and some of my little hand coded bash scripts handy just in case I have to reinstall from scratch. I failed to setup a separate /home directory last time, though, and I'm sure I'll pay for it some day.

How is using automatix any better than setting up a repository on your LAN and using a series of apt-gets in a script on each machine?

The only time that I've had a problem using Automatix is when I've not paid attention and left the repos in that Automatix uses. And once I made a mistake and saw the Ubuntu updater come on while using an earlier version of Automatix. So I just started the install over again once I realized it was foobared.

thanks for the responses. It turns out I really did not need to use it. System76 had all the necessary repositories already configured. So that's a good thing. Was a snap to get any of the multi-media stuff I wanted.

Speaking of Ubuntu, one of the recent updates broke compiz. If I run it, Xorg spikes cpu to 99% and eventually hard locks everything. No more eye-candy for now.

run beryl then. I'm running current edgy without problems.

I agree on Automatix being rather unneeded for about 95% (at least) of the things that it offers. You have to edit your sources.list to install the script anyway, so why not add all the proper repos instead? I think the automatix guys should just set up a special repository with all the p2p apps etc instead. it would be easier to manage and support, I would think.

Now I don't tell people not to try it, but I do try to show them a better way of doing things.

Plus this page and the flamefests on both sides of the 'controversy" I have witnessed in irc, I stay away from it altogether.

Yes! Apparently there was just trouble in my xorg.conf file. I just assumed it was compiz, silly me. Amazing how quickly you grow accustomed to the little graphical tricks. Without compiz, moving windows and changing desktops felt so unnatural.

I used automatix on most ubuntu systems that I setup and it was simpler and saved me alot of time as opposed to manually doing it.

Could someone post the relevant lines from sources.list that allow mplayer, nvidia drivers, w32 codecs, and ttf fonts?

To enable Universe and Multiverse:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu
This will add the repositories containing mplayer, msttfcorefonts, etc
Basically you are just uncommenting a couple of lines in your sources.list (clearly marked btw) and adding 'mulltiverse' to those 2 lines

for restricted formats:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
this tells you which packages to install after you have enabled those repos