change from edubuntu to ubuntu 8.04

[Tim Frost]

On Sun, 2009-01-04 at 17:02 -0800, Ray Parrish wrote:
> Jeroen T. Bezemer wrote:
> > norman wrote:
> >   
> >> My granddaughter has Edubuntu and Windows XP set up on a single hard
> >> drive and has asked me if I could change the Edubuntu to Ubuntu 8.04 and
> >> still retain the Windows XP. I have looked for some instruction but I am
> >> still rather confused as to the best procedure. What would be the
> >> simplest and quickest method to use, please.
> >>
> >>     
> > Startup synaptics-package-manager and install the package 
> > ubuntu-desktop. that ought to do everything you want, keeping every 
> > setting you have.
> > That is, you need to have room enough on your edubuntu partition.
> >
> >   
> Which will not result in a default Ubuntu install, as by default the 
> package ubuntu-desktop isn't even installed. I found that out by 
> searching Synaptic one day on my Ubuntu 8.04 installation, and was very 
> surprised to find out it was not installed.


ubuntu-desktop is a meta-package, that depends on the packages required
to provide a functional Gnome desktop.  There are similar meta-packages
for KDE (kubuntu-desktop) and XFCE (xubuntu-desktop).  Unless a PC has
been installed from a server CD, they will have (at least) one of these
meta-packages installed.

It is possible to install all of these, to get a system that offers all
3 windowing environments, or to install a server that doesn't have any
of them.


For Norman, the default desktop environment used by edubuntu *is* the
ubuntu default Gnome window manager and desktop (since edubuntu-desktop
depends on ubuntu-desktop), so it is a customised Gnome desktop, which
means that it *is* ubuntu (there is a KDE-based version of edubuntu as
well, called edubuntu-desktop-kde, for the KDE aficionados out there).

Edubuntu is tailored to the educational environment, so it supplies a
number of educational games and other programs that are not part of the
default Ubuntu (or kubuntu/xubuntu) desktop.  It also depends on a
central master server for some features. It may be that there is a
feature that is needed which depends on the edubuntu server, which your
granddaughter is expecting and not finding (because the server isn't on
your/her home LAN).

So we really need to understand what your granddaughter means by 'change
the Edubuntu to Ubuntu 8.04' before we can offer sensible advice.


Tim

-- 
Tim Frost <timfrost at xtra.co.nz>