Restricted modules in Ubuntu

Liam Proven lproven at gmail.com
Wed Jan 14 21:40:47 GMT 2009


2009/1/14 Alan Pope <alan at popey.com>:
> 2009/1/14 Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>:
>> Remastering: given that editions change every 6mth and I occasionally
>> use desktop, alternate and sometimes Xubuntu desktop and alternate
>> CDs, it's not really viable for me to do that for my own use.
>>
>
> It's a non issue then. If you calculate that the time invested in
> scripting the creation of a "liambuntu" which contains everything you
> need is going to be greater than the cumulative sum of issuing "sudo
> apt-get update \ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade \ sudo apt-get install
> ubuntu-restricted-extras" post-install on every machine for 6 months
> then clearly you should continue to do the latter.

Definitely, yes. Bit of pain, but there y'go.

I should look at writing a script to do the bulk of it - add in repos,
apt-get in the appropriate packages and so on. It will change with
time but not too dramatically. I could take it around on a USB key.

At the moment, the main part is:
[1] add the restricted, openoffice 3 & medibuntu repos
[2] install ubuntu-restricted-extras, Oo.o 3, w32codecs, libdvddecss, skype

Doesn't sound like much but it's around 30min of work on a fast
connection and a quick-ish PC. On a slow PC, it can be double that.

Unless I am pushed for space, I don't normally remove Evolution, as it
breaks the ubuntu-desktop metapackage, which /might/ cause problems
downstream. Of course, having 2 email clients might too - if they're
coming from a Windows box I set up, they'll have been on Thunderbird
already. Fair chance of that on a Mac too.

> The other alternative is to use a custom net install iso pre-seeded
> with the debs you wish to install. This could be served up over PXE
> and refer to a locally held repository for the install. Using
> debmirror to regularly sync the local mirror from the repository would
> mean you're always up to date. This has the benefit that it's trivial
> to update the ISO every 6 months, means the machines don't need to
> have any internal boot devices (cdrom/usb for example) and will result
> in a fully up to date install of "provenbuntu" (sounds better to me
> than liambuntu) and has everything you need.

I ought to learn how to do that, but too often, I'm out on the road at
a client site somewhere, so something on my own network is no help.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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