Automatix for Dapper?

[Peter Garrett]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:41:46 -0500
"Josh Stegmaier" <josh.steggy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Can I call FUD? I've used EasyUbuntu and Automatix. EasyUbuntu screwed up
> everytime for me, Automatix has never messed up even one thing on any of my
> systems, let alone screwing up an entire install.

1) Unfortunately your personal experience is not a reliable sample, and
proves nothing by itself.
2) If you had hung out on #ubuntu irc.freenode.net as much as Dennis has,
you would have seen how much damage Automatix has done to people's systems
(I have seen it myself on a number of occasions)
3) Dennis knows *quite a lot* about coding and scripting. I would tend to
believe him over someone calling "FUD" on a mailing list
4) The only really safe way to configure multimedia, flash, java and all
the things that these scripts automate is to do it yourself by following
the sane and straightforward instructions in the help, or consulting the
wiki ( for example https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats  )
and making the effort to understand, at least partially, what the packages
are doing to your system. That is , unless you know enough about scripting
and coding to read Automatix and EasyUbuntu and work out what they do - in
which case you wouldn't need them in the first place...
5) Automatix has caused issues in particular with dist-upgrades, and
before that with problems caused by people not understanding the
consequences of interrupting it or various apt/dpkg functions while it was
running ( example - installation of msttcorefonts using automatix hanging
because a server used to download the various fonts was temporarily off
line and the script not failing gracefully )
6) EasyUbuntu is coded by people who are doing their best to minimise
problems and who are open and co-operative with the community. It may be
that the same is now true of Automatix as well, I don't know. If you want
the lurid details on Automatix I invite you to search the mailing list
archives and forum for posts and threads containing the name "arnieboy". 
7) I suggest that you read https://launchpad.net/people/dennis and have a
look at https://launchpad.net/people/dennis/+karma

HAND

Peter