getting heavily into multimedia on ubuntu, how to start?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sat, 29 May 2010, sam tygier wrote:

> ubuntu make much use of meta packages. a software package can tell
> the package manager that it needs some other packages installed.
> meta-package does not contain any software itself, but will cause
> several related packages to be installed
>
> ubuntu studio uses some metapackages to install all the applications
> that it needs. if you look at the metapackages you can see what
> software they install. eg,ubuntustudio-audio
> http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/ubuntustudio-audio
>
> you can see all of them at
> http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=ubuntustudio&searchon=names&suite=lucid&section=all

  is there a way, from the command line, to display what a metapackage
corresponds to?  i'm using apt-cache and i'm a bit confused.

  if i run

  $ apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-extras

i'm told that the package "recommends"

...
Recommends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly,
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse, ttf-mscorefonts-installer,
flashplugin-installer, unrar, gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad,
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse, gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg,
libavcodec-extra-52, icedtea6-plugin, libmp4v2-0
...

  if, instead, i run

  $ apt-cache showpkg ubuntu-restricted-extras

...
Dependencies:
39 - gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly (0 (null))
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse (0 (null))
ttf-mscorefonts-installer (0 (null)) flashplugin-installer (0 (null))
unrar (0 (null)) gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad (0 (null))
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse (0 (null)) gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
(0 (null)) libavcodec-extra-52 (0 (null)) icedtea6-plugin (0 (null))
libmp4v2-0 (0 (null))
...

it would appear that those same packages are actual *dependencies.*
i'm interpreting that output the second way -- that installing that
metapackage *will* automatically pull in all those individual
packages.  is that correct?

rday

--

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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