Automatix

Daniel Pittman daniel at rimspace.net
Wed Jul 25 13:18:32 UTC 2007


"uriah heep" <stan10x10 at gmail.com> writes:

I took the liberty of restructuring your comments into the more standard
and readable form where your response follows my comments.  I also
trimmed extraneous content such as my signature.

The small investment of your time to format your contribution nicely
really makes a difference to how pleasant the mailing list is for
everyone to use.  

> On 7/25/07, Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net> wrote:
>> Neil Winchurst <neil at holsdev.vispa.com> writes:
>>
>> > My thread about 32 bit v 64 bit versions of kubuntu brought forth some
>> > interesting and varied replies. I think that I may give it a go when I
>> > get the DVDs.
>> >
>> > Meanwhile, the topic of automatix has come up several times in the
>> > thread. Dare I ask for comments about that?
>>
>> Sure.  Automatix is a tool that automatically installs various non-free
>> components to your system without user intervention.
>>
>> Using it is considered to be a bad idea by the core Ubuntu developers,
>> who recommend the detailed instructions found in the community
>> documentation here:
>>
>>     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
>>
>> That covers all current (and future) versions of Ubuntu, includes
>> detailed instructions on how to safely install these features and is
>> generally well maintained and easy to use.
>>
>>
>> You would be well advised, in general, to use those instructions in
>> preference to Automatix, I believe.
>>
>
> I am a noob but as I understand it automatix is a script program to
> install various non free programs.

Yes.

> I used it on my 32 bit install with the intention of getting my
> install to run what I considered my basic needs with the least time,
> fuss & muss. I was mainly interested in playing back my Cd's and
> getting my Nvida drivers going.  The program did what it was supposed
> to do.  

Yes, it does.  

> As I have my basic (to me) install working fine I am now taking the
> time to explore the command line etc.  I am not a weenie or religious
> user so I wanted to get up and running as quickly as possible before
> the learning curve got steep and slow.  

The key objection to the Automatix system, as well as the couple of
similar packages, was that they tended to cause problems further down
the track.

Notably, during distribution upgrades there were a large number of
failures that left people with completely non-functional systems.  Those
problems were traced directly back to the "helpful" scripts by the
developers.


Perhaps, now that you have a bit more experience, you could consider
going over the instructions at the URL above and working out if they
would have been equally convenient for you.

If they are just as helpful then great -- and if not then your
assistance in improving them and making them helpful will be much
appreciated across the board.

> Stan

You probably want to update the readable name in your mailer; having
different names in different places is confusing -- it is hard to know
how you want to be identified.

Regards,
        Daniel
-- 
Digital Infrastructure Solutions -- making IT simple, stable and secure
Phone: 0401 155 707        email: contact at digital-infrastructure.com.au
                 http://digital-infrastructure.com.au/





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