To Automatix or not?

[Vayu]

On Monday 20 March 2006 11:43, Jonathan Jesse wrote:
> On Monday 20 March 2006 14:28, Lord Sauron wrote:
> > On 3/19/06, James Gray <james at grayonline.id.au> wrote:
> > > I've seen some discussion on two separate threads recently about the
> > > merits of Automatix.  I'd like to share the following from Jeff Waugh
> > > (Gnome developer ghod and Ubuntu guru):
> > >
> > > Quote: Jeff Waugh
> > > "Please use EasyUbuntu instead of Automatix. There are a lot of
> > > disappointly bad things done by Automatix that are better to avoid.
> > > - Jeff"
> > >
> > > Take it or leave it.  I'm not trying to start a holy war or dis the
> > > Automatix people.  Just advertising that there is an "Ubuntu preferred"
> > > alternative :)
> >
> > What on earth is Automatix?  I looked through aptitude, but found nothing.
> >
> > --
> > ========== GCv3.12 ==========
> > GCS d-(++) s+: a? C++ UL+>++++ P+
> > L++ E--- W+(+++) N++ o? K? w--- O? M+
> > V? PS- PE+ Y-(--) PGP- t+++ 5? X R tv-- b+
> >                 DI+++ D+ G e* h- !r !y
> > ========= END GCv3.12 ========
> 
> Automatix is a very bad tool that you need to download yourself.  It is a 
> script and is not avaialble through syantpic/aptitude/adept/apt-get 
> 
> -- 

Actually it is a very good tool, that uses bad practices.   It is a script 
that gives you a checkbox menu list to install many of the most popular 
items.  It will get your multimedia going by installing all the codecs and 
players.  It will install Firefox 1.5, It will Install OpenOffice 2.x.  It 
will install Opera, and the list goes on of goodies that are often needed but 
not provided in a base install.  It will set your system up to use DMA for 
your CD drives, it will give you the scripts to right click in Nautilus and 
open a file as root.  

You can do a fresh install of Breezy, then run Automatix and you will have an 
entirely set up system that doesn't take all kinds of configuring.  

I used it for my kids PC and my laptop, when I just didn't feel like spending 
three days to get everything working.  It was amazing.  Better than windows.  
Two steps and I had fully functioning computers.

It was all the rage until someone reported to the author that he shouldn't be 
using a force directive with apt-get install.  He replied that he had to, and 
then began the personal attacks.  There were two long threads on the Ubuntu 
forums that were the most uncivil and unreasonable I've experienced on those 
forums.  It was unfortunate because not only was Automatix a great tool it 
had a great following.  The author was presented with ways to achieve his 
aims without compromising systems.  He said he would implement them.  Since 
then I haven't heard anything other than he revoked this GPL license and the 
community which use to hail that program seems to be steering clear of it.

I didn't really understand why he was so belligerently defensive.  His tool 
was fantastic, with a few changes it would have made for safer Debian style 
installs.

From a fresh Breezy install and for most situations Automatix would not do any 
harm to your system.  By using the force directive there are situations where 
your system could break.  I believe it also used non-Ubuntu repositories and 
that was also considered dangerous.

You can look up those two threads on the Ubuntu forums to find out in more 
detail.