Automatix Kicks Ubuntu into Gear

With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners, there have been quite a few people who have mentioned a script called "Automatix" for Ubuntu as a means of easing the average joe into a life of Linux. Linux.com's (a Slashdot sister site) Tina Gasperson takes a closer look at Automatix and how it could help soften the blow of a Linux switch, at least in the short term. From the article: "Automatix lives up to its reputation. It's worth any time and small frustration it might take to get through the script. And it's even worth that 'over-the-shoulder' time you might spend with a new Linux user to walk them through it. I don't see any reason why a beginner would not be delighted with Ubuntu after a magic touch from Automatix."

Nice

From TFA:

There's been some discussion lately about whether Ubuntu is suitable for Linux beginners.

Ubuntu is great for beginners! If you're an experienced Linux user trying to help out a newbie, you can change anything you want, and they don't even have to tell you the password! [slashdot.org]

[ducks]

Ubuntu

I tried it out, and it was easier than installing Mandrake for me, and I am a total newbie to linux. One thing though - I am having a lot of trouble with LDAP.

Ubuntu craze

Disclaimer: I've been using Linux and Unix in general for many many years.

That being out of the way...
I don't find Ubuntu all that revolutionary in user friendlyness. It's never detected a piece of hardware most others couldn't (for me). The installer isn't anything special (ncurses based). It doesn't play patent encombered media types. It uses a dickload of ram. On top of all that, they didn't even put any good eye candy.

I mean its not bad, just not revolutionary like everyone would have you believe. I find Fedora and Suse to really be of equal quality (I generally use Debian anyway).

I know I'll get flamed as a troll, but please enlighten me how Ubuntu is light years ahead of any other distro in user friendlyness. I'd like to believe it's some great leap forward (and I run it on a couple of machines myself), but I just don't see it.

Ubuntu user-friendliness

Why is Ubuntu user-friendly? Because it's Debian, and Debian has the best package installation/management system on ANY platform. It's years ahead of the rest. Problem is, most people tried Debian years ago, didn't know it was easy to install now, and also didn't know it was easy to upgrade to the latest software. So debian + an ubuntu splashscreen + the latest software makes what the rest of us know and love available to them.

Why modded funny? Basically true...

...that is what I really think about Ubuntu as well, and I have both Debian (my machine) and Ubuntu (girlfriends machine) here in our flat. The packaga manager is just different than Debians, the installer is the same, and well, the preselection of apps was a little more thorough than in sid. But I also had to install a lot of extras (what is now done by Automatix), so I also do not see what the real fuzz is, especially compared to recent SuSE offerings for example (running on machine of my girlfriends mum).

Re:Ubuntu user-friendliness

"I still don't understand what makes apt-get years ahead of something like urpmi. Both seem to just work, and do about the same sort of thing. I don't have problems with either."

I don't think "apt-get" was ever that revolutionary in a technical sense. Coming from an HP-UX background, I was using Software Distributor, that did a lot of the things that "apt" did years ago, including clearing out superseeded packages from repositories, and such like. Okay it wasn't as "web ready", but then the web wasn't so important then.

The thing that distinguished Debian is both the quality of the packages (in terms of how well packaged, not the software contained), the variety of packages (in official archives with set standards of quality and support), and that they have long been used with reliance on the dependencies, and their automatic resolution. So when you type "apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2" you do get the right set of packages underneath to make it "just work".

Sure the tools to do this in the RPM world have been catching up, but I doubt if you take a vanilla system minimal install with most of these distros, and type a selection of similar commands to the above, that you'll get them all to "just work" as slickly as Debian Sarge will. But that is nothing to do with the tool itself, just the data it has to work with. Although some of the RPM tools can be painfully slow (don't mention yum).

Re:Ubuntu craze

I am a n00b when it comes to Linux.

I've installed Ubuntu a ton of times on relatively ancient computers (p2 233s come to mind) and its always very easy to do, and very easy to get help with from Ubuntu's user forums.

I've more recently tried out Fedora on a couple of higher end comps (I have no $$ for computers so higher end might mean P3 700 )to act as servers to small groups of the Ubuntu comps and really enjoyed that as well.

I think there is a nice feeling to Ubuntu, its labeled, packaged, and branded very well. But, at the same time, I'm a complete Linux newb and I set up Fedora (plus suse just to try it out) and had no more problems with any of them, well actually I didn't have any problems with any of them. After I got used to it a bit more, I prefered working in Fedora to the others.

I think its image more then anything. People don't feel as threatened by Ubuntu. Linux can seem daunting sometimes and Ubuntu has built an image and community to get people past that painlessly. I never got the same impression from the other distros I've tried (not saying there aren't others out there that do this, just not ones I've tried).

In the end I think it comes down to Ubuntu defining their target audience differently then most other distros, and the audience they are (successfully) appealling to is a pretty large one.

Here are five ways it is better

1) Like Debian, has apt, there is so no dependency hell when you install new packages or upgrade

2) Unlike Debian, has regular releases (every 6mo or so), so you can regularly get quality-tested new software. Plus the Ubuntu unstable is usually usable three months into development.

3) Newb-friendly community; people will go out of their way to help newbs, not flame them. Yes, even if they did not RTFM. They believe that you deserve help even if you don't RTFM. Can you imagine that?

4) Plus, the forums provide an environment that newbs are comfortable in. Check out the other distro's forums and you'll see the difference. Admittedly this is tied to their considerable financial resources.

4) Most people (including myself) report superior hardware detection to Fedora/Suse. On my laptop it detected everything perfectly. I am not sure how it compares to Debian.

5) They will mail you a free CD. Anywhere you are in the world. And the whole distro fits on a single CD. It truly aims to be a universal distribution, for everyone. The whole community treats itself/Linux as gospel to be spread, especially to Win users, which I think is a good thing but you may not.

Then/Than correction

Corrected:
All slashdot folks substitute than for then and then for than.

I had none of the problems mentioned

I had ZERO problems running Automatix.
Very nice little app/script to install on Ubuntu.

Re:I had none of the problems mentioned

Easy Ubuntu [freecontrib.org]'s pretty nice as well....

For anyone who doesn't know, since the Slashdot article doesn't even explain what these two programs do, they setup all the restricted/proprietary stuff for the user that Ubuntu can not legally distribute by default like 3d video drivers, mp3 playback and such.

Not just for newbies

I contest this is a very handy tool for anyone that wants to setup multi-media, web browsing, plugins and more.

I setup most of my system without it and when I finally found it I was trying to setup Java plugin for firefox.... needless to say I kicked myself a few times, realizing that I could have saved myself days of configuring.

Uhh...

I could share files using a Gnutella client or a BitTorrent client; Kino imported my digital video files directly through Firewire; and as a bonus, Automatix even installed OpenOffice.org and Thunderbird.

Ubuntu comes with a BitTorrent client, and OpenOffice.org, and Thunderbird. No script needed.

I don't see the point personally.

Have you really looked at what it does?

I don't trust the guy that wrote it, I've read some of his how-tos on the ubuntu forums, and some of them offer very bad advice. Also note: "If u type liek this i think ur more liek jeffk and u want to hax me!"... and well...thats pretty much how he types.

User beware, Just because it's free or opensource, doesn't mean it's safe.

Re:Have you really looked at what it does?

Many people have but the creator and maintainer refuses to do anything about it.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122797 [ubuntuforums.org]

Anybody still wanting to use Automatix after reading this thread is helpless.

Dominatix

In other news, Automatix was so successful in making Ubuntu the dominant Linux distribution, she changed her name to Dominatix, making every Linux user LILO under her bootp. Sorry!

You should give it a spin!

I've used it and I have to it's a fantastic script/app!
It installed and configured things like setting up the audio and multimedia codecs, properly setting up amsn(it crashed when i installed it through synaptic) configuring ctrl-alt-del to show the gnome system monitor plus num lock on when gnome starts and eject cd when i click the drive. And Firefox 1.5 install was the really easy!

It made things that I could have accomplished if I searched forums and mailing lists but this made me jump those hurdles and just install the things.

Hehe

I had to chuckle at the irony of a script to ease a newbie into Linux... script and newbie don't tend to go together in my mind :p

I love the instructions for installing Automatix:

wget http://beerorkid.com/automatix/automatix_5.6-2_i38 6.deb
sudo dpkg -i automatix_5.6-2_i386.deb

Yes, it's simple enough, and yes, it seems like that's the most complicated part of the entire process, but again I had to chuckle at the image of asking a newbie to open a terminal and type that in.

The script itself sounds great though... I wouldn't mind having something like that for Windows.

You don't get it: CLI commands are easier than GUI

I had to chuckle at the image of asking a newbie to open a terminal and type that in.

The point you seem to be missing with terminal commands is this:

Nobody has to type them in. You paste them in.

I do a lot of support, and the first thing I explain to the people I work with is

1. how to open a terminal (or "Command prompt" etc.)
2. how to paste a command into it (presumably from an email I sent them)
3. how to copy the (text) screen to send it to me if needed.

It's so much easier than this endless hunting around the GUI to find the application, listen to a full explanation of what is on screen, having the user find the correct menu/tab/whatever to continue, listen to what is on the screen, etc. etc.

The GUI changes all the time, and when you have to deal with it in different languages (I have users with German, French and English systems), it is a nightmare over a phone, it takes ages, and the user gets frustrated.

With a cut/paste of CLI commands, it is simpler and faster, and user appreciate it.

Admins also constantly paste commands from web pages into the shell, because it's the easiest. Why would they suggest to users to use the hard way instead.

My Issue

Well, here is my issue. When I install NVIdia drivers, Ubuntu no longer recognizes my wireless connection. Would this be solved. I hope so, i may try this tonight.

Not Troll, I Swear

As a non-computer-person hoping to shortly shift to Linux, here is what I and my fellow newbie dummies want/need:

1. Insert CD.

2. Click OK.

3. Done.

I'm sure that's pretty obvious, so the question is: how close are Linux distros to being to that level, and if the answer is 'not close' then what are the obstacles to getting there and how are they being addressed?

Re:Not Troll, I Swear

What do you currently use? Because installing Windows isn't this easy. Both Ubuntu and Fedora are pretty easy to install, with Fedora asking a few more questions but also having a friendly GUI installer. (K)ubuntu's is text only, but still very easy.

Re:Not Troll, I Swear

Many distros are at this level, if you don't mind blowing away anything that's on the hard drive. Not quite literally, because one-click installation, while theoretically possible, is not feasible. While the cost/benefit curve of a given installation question slopes off sharply as the number of questions increases, there are some things that sometimes need to be asked. One of them, for instance, is "can I blow the contents of this hard drive away?" It really doesn't matter if a user doesn't understand what that means; there is no practical default that results both in a Linux system being installed and no grave data loss. Saving a windows installation takes more work because there are inherently decisions involved.

Still, there are many distros that are much easier than Windows if have common hardware, and you end up with a lot more after the installation is done. (Don't overestimate Window's hardware support, too.)

Be sure you try to install XP from scratch sometime for a fair comparision, too. I just did one a few weeks ago, and along with a number of questions the installer asks, you also have (IIRC) a minimum of three "Update, Install, Reboot" sequences before you're fully up to date. (Fortunately, they've done a bit of work to keep that down. I believe there was one time period when the minimum was four, late in the Service Pack 1 time frame.) And when you're done, all you have is Windows XP, and about all it can do on its own is browse the web. Wordpad's your document editor, Paint your graphics editor, and Solitaire your game.

Re:Not Troll, I Swear

Yeah. May I suggest, though, that you try some of the recent warez distributions of Windows XP available over Bittorrent. They're starting to resemble Linux distributions in that they bundle lots of commonly used apps right into the installer. One I've tried gives you a set of checkboxes for applications...

So true. In fact, the last warez edition of Windows XP I tried didn't even require me to check all those checkboxes - it installed Bonzi Buddy, Flyswat, Hotbar, Webhancer, Comet Cursor, Doubleclick and Gator all in one go, without needing a single click from little old me :)

Re:Not Troll, I Swear

I can't give you an authoritative answer here (in part because I've been a computer person for a long time, and I run GNU/Linux and FreeBSD systems), but let me say this:

First: Can you do this with Windows? (I mean, really just click ok and be off and running.) OR do you have to know how to do some stuff? (For example, install drivers or software for word processing, games, web browsing, security, and the like.) When they installed my department's new printer, all the windows computers had to get new drivers, whereas the guy running OS X was ready to go through rendezvous and my CUPS drivers were fine.

If you switch to a GNU/Linux system, you'll have to learn some things because it works differently---both in terms of the graphical interfaces that come with a distribution and in terms of the way unix-like OSes work. You probably won't have to learn EVERYTHING all over again (wordprocessors do function broadly the same, firefox is identical), but some things will be different.

Some distributions require a lot of hands on stuff (gentoo and linux from scratch, I'm looking at you), while others are pretty neophyte (I hear this about ubuntu, pclinuxos, and suse).

My biggest piece of advice: find a live cd distro and try that out on your hardware. Play and WORK with it for a while, see if you think it is doable.

I should add that there are some rewards to switching. Your computer will be more stable, you'll have access to a HUGE amount of free (and gratis) software that can easily be installed, and you'll be a bit more computer literate (what can I say, I'm a philosopher, so knowledge counts for something). You'll also be supporting liberty, and, let's face it, everyone knows that having a GNU/Linux sticker on your car/bike/bookbag/laptop is guaranteed to get you laid.*

Hope this helps.
*Guarantee not valid anywhere. Your mileage may vary.

Re:Not Troll, I Swear

As a non-computer-person hoping to shortly shift to Linux, here is what I and my fellow newbie dummies want/need:

1. Insert CD.

2. Click OK.

3. Done.

I'm sure that's pretty obvious, so the question is: how close are Linux distros to being to that level, and if the answer is 'not close' then what are the obstacles to getting there and how are they being addressed?

The sad thing here is that both of us need to preface our remarks with "this is not a troll, I swear".

Sorry to disappoint, but you will not find a single Linux distribution like that, despite what many people here will tell you. I've used Linux full-time as a desktop off and on for years, from straight Debian (hard) to Mandrake/Mandriva (fairly easy). I even tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu, the most recent release. Everyone who ever says Linux is easy really has no clue what easy means to non-technical people. I mean, come on, you have to find and run a special script just to get support for playing DVDs and configure other simple things that are essential for a typical desktop user. If you're not lucky enough to have heard of this special script you get to spend hours on the web learning about obscure and difficult to find packages like libdvdcss, blah blah blah. Your typical geek will wade through it all with infinite patience, not having a clue how difficult this stuff is for non-geeks. Then they proceed to tell everyone how easy it is to use Linux for anything and everything.

If you (a non-computer-person) are serious about switching away from Windows you need to get yourself a Mac, because "desktop Linux" has a loooong way to go in terms of polish. I'll keep checking it out myself every year or so, but so far I have not been impressed with the progress and I'm sure a person like you won't be either. Of course, it's a free country, so feel free to download a couple dozen distros and find out for yourself just how ludicrous it is to say that Linux is ready for the mainstream desktop.

Re:MOD PARENT UP (more)

And the only support I got in the forums was, "you idiot, why didn't you [perform precaution mentioned nowhere in the install instructions]".

That is demonstrably false[*]. People honestly tried to help you. While some people did get frustrated because of your tone, no-one called you names like that. My take on this as an outsider (I'm not a regular at ubuntuforums and I didn't take part in the thread) is that you provoked people who tried to help you and refused to do what they suggested.

It's ok to say that "Distro X sucks cause it didn't work for me". Badmouthing volunteers who try to help is not.

* http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122473 [ubuntuforums.org]

Re:MOD PARENT UP (more)

Sounds like they did you a favor to delete your more ranty stuff before the thread got slashdotted. You'd look like even more of a jerk.

I don't use Ubuntu -- I used debian-via-knoppix for about 18 months, and have recently switched to Xandros OCE and I'm reasonably happy with it.

From reading over the thread, it looks as though you had the expectation that the people who gave you the software for free were obliged to provide you with the answers to all of your demands for support sight unseen. This is the place where the problems in the thread came from.

Mind you, I know what it's like to ask a simple-sounding question and get a brief and obscure answer -- or a very ugly answer (like "back up your homedirs, format your hd, and do a fresh install with stable or testing" that I got on irc last month). It's frustrating. Part of where it comes from is not yet knowing enough to be able to ask the question which, when answered, will give you the information you need to fix the problem you've got. That's you, and that's me. I'm learning pieces as we go, and the learning curve isn't a lot of fun, but the nice thing about *nix stuff is that the things that you learn stay true (if not, always, relevant), as opposed to proprietary stuff, where the paradigms can change much more drastically and things you once knew have to be unlearned with annoying frequency.

However, when you're asking for free help, you need to remember that there isn't anybody there that has a stake in you fixing your problem. Not everybody who could answer your question chooses to hang around in those forums, and not everybody who does is going to give you the answer you want in the form you want to hear it. If you're not paying for their time, it is unreasonable to expect them to show a good customer service attitude. You're not a customer.

Now, some things you might have learned from this situation:

1) It's a smart idea to know where your Windows install CD is, especially when you're going to try something major with your system.

2) It's a smart idea to have a Knoppix CD on hand when you try something major with your system.

3) Having more than one physical HD in a system makes it a little non-standard, and standard answers might need a little tweaking to work right. The person who wrote the manual may not have taken the details of your situation into account, so this is something to research prior to trying to set things up on it.

4) The Thumper Principle works really, really well when asking for free help from strangers who have no reason to like you or do anything nice for you: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. That's hard to do when you're really frustrated. In the words of Eric to Corey, "Life's hard, little brother. Get a helmet." Or, if you prefer "Life is pain, princess. Anybody who says otherwise is selling something." That which doesn't kill you will make you stronger, and you're not dead yet. Being nice to people is just generally a better idea when you have nothing to offer them that they need in return.

Not sure which, if any, of those lessons you have or will learned, but those jump out to me. I hope you've worked through the problem somehow by now.

I checked this out earlier

And it works great. Just make sure you back up your Firefox and Thunderbird files before using this. Also, I can no longer get enigmail to work. Other than that, it provides a nice addition to Ubuntu Breezy.

DONT USE AUTOMATIX!

Has anyone here been to the #ubuntu channel on irc.freenode.net? YOu will find that Automatix is regarded as THE WORST option for ubuntu users. It has huge security holes, overwrites configs, and uses very risky command line options. Instead you should use easyubuntu. http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ [freecontrib.org]

Re:DONT USE AUTOMATIX!

From what I saw on the ubuntu forums, the guy who wrote this has no idea how apt is supposed to work. He's using things like --force-yes in his script....you should NEVER have to do this. It's basically telling apt to shove it and install anyway.....never do that on ANY Debian box unless you know what your doing. As he's asking new users to use this, it should NEVER do things that may break the system. It's not like it's really hard to write the script to do it right even. The biggest reason he used those flags was to avoid having to load the GPG keys in the apt keyring.....apt has this for a REASON! I can understand if it had a pop up and ask you to approve it if there was a BADSIG issue in the repository (there was one this weekend in the Debian sid repository....). Just ignoring it to begin with is VERY bad form.

Not the best solution

Pretty much what Automatix does is route around the usability problems in the GUI apt systems. Automatix is good for two reasons: firstly, it hides the apt-get frontend. It handles adding unofficial repos, installing, and configuring the packages. Secondly, it takes the massive array of software ubuntu inherits from the Debian infrastructure and selects some useful stuff they think people might not know about but likely want or need.

This stuff is useful, but things could be better if a lot of effort was put into synaptic and the default repos. Some of this stuff should make its way into upsteam, in this case, base-config and ubuntu-desktop. NumlockX enabled on startup is simply a good idea and a cheap and trivial fix. Ubuntu should be working on getting permissions to distribute the official JVM as part of Ubuntu, and gftp is pretty useful so I don't see why it shouldn't be thrown in. Obviously some of the stuff Automatix does is dangerous or illegal (installing mp3 support) and thus won't ever make it as part of Ubuntu proper, but I'd like to see them cherry pick some of the better ones. The benefit is that everybody gets these improvements rather than just those who've heard of automatix.

The second part of what Automatix does is a very important and thus far unaddressed problem in the Debian model. The ubuntu-desktop virtual package mildly alleviates this problem by selecting a few of the most basic applications you'd want. Plenty of packages are provided, but there's no way for users to know what's useful to them. If you think of synaptic as a software sales tool every bit as a package manager, it's doing a horrible job on the sales front. From a beginner usability standpoint, if Synaptic presented a a list of say the 10 most popular packages you don't have installed, that would improve things a lot. Debian / Ubuntu have a lot of great things packaged, but they have a hard time promoting the use of any particular software they actually distribute. The good news is that a lot of the tools to accomplish this already exist: popcon is a system for reporting software installs back to the central server. One of the most popular installs is the acrobat reader and plugin. On the one hand, reporting this information may be dangerous and also requires an mailer service. On the other hand, raw package downloads don't tell us information like "people who've installed acro-reader also have acro-reader-plugin" or "people who have blah installed usually don't have blah." Much of this will be obvious, but sometimes these sorts of Bayesian inferrences are important. It allows you to say things like, 'hey we noticed you have acroreader-plugin installed, would you like to try out the firefox plugin to mplayer?'

Satire?

This is satire, right? It certainly seems to be a huge "stay the hell away from linux!" warning message.

What it does...short version

This script installs Free implementations of patented algorithms, proprietary codecs, Sun's Java, P2P file sharing programs, non-free programs like Adobe Acrobate, MS true type fonts (unsure about Tahoma; you need a Windows license to use that one), non-free-illegal-in-US codecs, non-free Nvidia binary blobs, and makes some GUI behaviors mimic a W32 environment.

In short, it takes away the Freedom portion of a GNU/Linux system and makes it Yet Another Windows Competitor.

About the only thing I like from that list is disabling CD-ROM drive locking, turning DMA on, and the ESD sleep fix. I'm not sure about the locking, either. Ctrl-Alt-Del bringing up the task manager seems kinda nice, but I would rather just discover keybinding on my own.

Then again, I'm not this script's target audience.

Don't use Automatix

I'm not familiar with the details of automatix, but I lurk quite much in the Ubuntu channels, and it's generally seen as some virus-like script with all kinds of disadvantages and shortcomings.

Or to make it short (from IRC):
[...] !automatix
[ubotu] it has been said that automatix is unsafe, it overwrites configuration files, and does things like "echo -e 'ynYn'" that are considered risky. Please do not use it. There are alternative applications, but it's often best to read the documentation.

please clarify "does not support AMD64"

Here was my initial problem with Automatix when I first encountered it months ago: they say it doesn't support AMD64.

Now, that could mean ONE of two things:

1. It doesn't support the 64-bit AMD64 distribution of Ubuntu Linux.

or

2. It doesn't support the 32-bit i386 distribution of Ubuntu Linux if it happens to be running on an AMD64 chip (i.e. in i386 compatibility mode).

I'd bet money that it's #1, not #2, because I have yet to encounter an app that cares that I'm running an AMD64 chip under my regular 32-bit Ubuntu. It's running the standard i386 instruction set, maybe with some accelerated functions, and that's that.

They really need to be a hell of lot clearer on that, because it's a big source of confusion. Word choice matters.

How is this easy?

Why is this making news when everything that Automatix installs and enables is already pre-installed in PCLinuxOS. Heck, it even has Opera in the repositories.

Automatix screws up dual-boot

I have a dual-boot Ubuntu/Windows XP system where I had set up menu.lst to have Windows XP as the first/default option. After running Automatix, all the programs were indeed updated, but it also modified the menu.lst file to remove the Windows XP boot option completely! I knew how to fix it, but how many newbies would see that and not know what to do to get Windows XP back? It only takes one experience like that to sour people forever on Linux. Dumb.

Messed up my X server

Used it today and it messed up my X server.

Why I, the AVERAGE POWERUSER switched to Linux

One word. Ubuntu.

For those who read Slashdot regularly, the subject may sound familiar. I was the window user who commented on why the average user DOESN'T switch.

I'm full time Ubuntu at home now.

I have everything working that I had on my windows box. I may have a learning curve when it comes to using new apps, but the point is, I switched almost painlessly.

Hardawre worked out of box? Check
Re-installed all needed software? Check
Printer installed? Check
Kick ass support system in #ubuntu-support? Check
kick ass add/remove program clone? Check
Plays Movies? Check
P2p? Check
Finance software? Check
Remote administration? Check
Virtual Machine Capable? Check
Free Free Free? Check

Best of all is the performance. I've heard that Gnome is slow overall, but man o man, my xp box always BOGGED down after about a year of use to the point I have to reinstall. Hope that doesn't happen with Ubuntu, but in Xp, I was getting "buffer" errors with windows due to too many tcp/ip calls. I had 8 apps that used the internet open. I had mysterious IDE errors with no resolution...I had explorer and svchost issues, Now, I have NO problems and my speeds are incredible.

While it's STILL not ready for primetime for mom and dad (cept for simply browsing...can you believe my wife found firefox, surfed and printed without even knowing I had switched the pc?), I would recommend it for anyone who remembers how to use limited command line options, can follow instructions and who is interested in change.

Sure I had to Sudo apt-get this, and tar xvf that (still don't REALLY know what I'm doing when I use these options, but I'm sure there's a HOWTO when I get a moment) but like I said, I'm HAPPY with ubuntu, the first distro I've found to satisfy my curiosity of Linux and delight me with it's power and ease of use.

This script just makes it LEAPS and BOUNDS simplier than it already is.

Kudo's!

Yo Grark

P.S. Completely separate topic, I'm looking to hire a website developer/programmer to implement a backend to a new e-business, any idea on where to start looking?

Is the summary from the same article I read?

So ready for beginners includes such niceties as failing without warning and running it three times in succession as a leap of faith to getting things finished? Don't get me wrong, I like Ubuntu, but I'm a techie.

I know for sure that the software I produce can't have gotcha like that and still be considered 'ready'

Not gonna happen.

Like my parents would *ever* download something from a site called "beerorkid.com".

Give me a break, this is professional? This is for the average Joe? CLI installation and unprofessional URLs do not a professional program make.

Perhaps...

As an OOBE automatically launching immediately after install on first boot, before the desktop loads.

Otherwise, it's crap for "new users" or "the average Joe".

A lot of us will use it, and it may get even more popular, but calling it a tool for new users and the average Joe is stretching it a bit.

Automatix

I also Dabble with Linux on my Home machine Its an OLD mac.. struggling at 300mhz. I installed YELLOWDOG a distro, that was desgined for the PPC.. yea right... Jumping through hoops just to get the MAC Volume controls on the keyboard to work.
I tried Ubuntu next, EVERYTHING worked out of the box, volume, eject all flawless. I'm struggling with Flash Plugins as MAcromedia forgot about PPC binaries/sources :) I will be waiting patiently for automatix PPC to be released...

Re:Automatix

Easy Ubuntu [freecontrib.org] supports PPC, and is safer to use than Automatix.

I find out late again

If only this came up a week ago. I got ticked off that a Gentoo update mangled something and I coldn't get into KDE anymore so I dumped it and tried kubuntu. Probably from my lack of familiarity with the ubuntu/debian packaging methods, I couldn't figure out how to do things that had become rather easy for me in Gentoo, such as get the proprietary binary Nvidia drivers going, install mythtv, etc. Even trying generic system full update had lots of failures for some reason, perhaps the network wasn't quite right or something, but after a coupel days of it doing very little that I wanted it to, I'm reinstalling Gentoo again. And I don't particularly want to anymore. I like portage, but I hate having to compile freakin everything in the universe...

Maybe I'll try kubuntu again with this script..

What a crap summary

Apart from the link to the OP, there was *zero* useful information in that post summary about WHAT THE HELL AUTOMATIX IS!

Sigh

Ok, good idea, kudos to the author. However, Ubuntu need to sharpen up a bit if they want to get into the corporate market and play for the bigtime, which they say they do. Using a third-party script, however useful, comes over as a bit amateur. (Some might say the strange new tangerine theme in the Dapper Drake edition comes over in the same way, but that's another story.)

Automatix sounds a good half-way house that will become better as it gets refined and polished. But the real question is why this stuff should have to be downloaded separately in the first place. I know it is not Ubuntu's fault and is common to Linux generally, but until desktop distros knock this missing multimedia and non-free apps issue completely on the head to the point where it is just history, there will still be hassles for new users. The write-up for Automatix mentions the dread word "terminal" which is enough to make plenty of new users feel queasy.

Perhaps Ubuntu should step back, stop trying to reinvent so many wheels and come up with something really new and worthwhile such as an improved apt which offers more granular choices and clearer explanations of what programs do what. If I am new to Linux and I want a suite of best of breed apps, I will still be Googling next month before I work my way through all the mysterious items thrown up by Synaptic. For example, Ubuntu installs Evolution by default. But what would I get (or lose) if I opted subsequently for Thunderbird or Sylpheed-Claws? All good programs, but it shouldn't be too hard to build some kind of "guidance" into apt to help me make some better-informed choices from a smaller list of options. The same is true of, say, Xine, MPlayer or VideoLan and many other things.

I don't use it because of the --force flag

Automatix is convenient in a newbie, but the fact it uses the --force flag makes me uncomfortable and at times it can cause breakage. So I would recommend if you are comfortable with ubuntu, just install the stuff yourself, but for newbies the pro's can outweight the con's.

Yea.... I tried that

My Bro's laptop has a hard drive die, so I replace and put ubuntu on with automatix, walk him through it, load him up with all the software he thought he might like initially, and away I go. The next day he tries to start it up and do some web browsing, gets stuck, and hasnt touched it since, despite my chiding. Non-computer people simply dont want to change. They are too used to windows and any change is percieved as too much hassle for not enough benefit. Heck, I even warmed him up with FireFox on his desktop windows machine before doing the switch, he uses firefox, but he just isnt interested in "learning" linux, despite me telling him repetadly there is practically nothing to learn.

Not just for the beginners

I downloaded Automatix and used it to install a few things, but I didn't use their GUI. I just went through the script and manually executed the commands that installed the components I wanted. I heard a lot of things about how Automatix can screw up your system, but this way I knew exactly what it was doing, and it really didn't take that much more effort than the GUI.

I think the best part of Automatix is it's basically an aggregation of procedures to install the most popular non-standard components. Instead of making a google search and spending 15 minutes copying commands from a howto, I can just copy a whole block from the Automatix script. I highly recommend it even if you're experienced with linux. Just give the script a once-over to make sure you're ok with what it's executing.

Junkware Unite!

According to the article, it installs, among other fine jewels, Flash (just in case you *like* gratuitous blinky flashy animations), "several file sharing programs" (no doubt along the lines of KaZaA and its ilk, just in case your computer was previously performing too responsively for your tastes), RealPlayer (my vote for Most Heinous User Interface Design Ever, and that's in addition to its undisputed status as nagware of the most persistent kind), and, umm, "more". At the rate the list was going so far as it was stated, I can only assume that "more" is largely composed of utterly superfluous dross.

It does also install a couple of potentially useful things, such as Java. Also, Opera, which comes in handy if you create any web pages and want to test them out in multiple browsers, since Opera uses a different rendering engine than anything else and so is always good to include in such test batteries.

Then there's "an ftp client". I'm quite sure that Ubuntu comes with several of those right out of the box, so maybe they just had to pad the list out a bit. I'd be curious to know which ftp client it installs, and whether it's decently usable.

Eh. All that borderline-malware is a pretty heavy price to pay just to get Java and Opera, when you could just get those things on their own and have done.

The idea of automatically installing a bunch of stuff is a good idea, but I don't much care for their list of stuff.

growing???

from the article summary:

"With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners"

What??? Isn't that the biggest argument against using Linux, etc. since techies first started showing others Linux?

I know every thread I've seen involving 'why isn't linux used more' the argument usually focuses on the difficulty for non-hobbyists to get started adn use programs they are familiar with.

Also, from personal experience, when my friend first showed me his Linux machine, the first thing i thought was, "Who has time to learn all this new software when the benefits aren't worth the effort?"

Just the fact that someone thinks that the 'usability' issue is new/growing proves that techies are way out of touch with what day to day end users are thinking.

Better Options for Ubuntu Than Automatix

There are a couple of other options that have worked for me, I had some issues with Automatix.

If you are using Breezy try out Easy Ubuntu http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=86/ [ubuntuforums.org]. Installed on about 5 machines with almost no problems.

If you are using Dapper try out BUMPS http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=13888 9&highlight=bumps/ [ubuntuforums.org]. I have a lot of success with this. The author (Ian Alexander) is always soliciting suggestions and has nade quite a few updates in just the last couple of weeks.

Re:Better Options for Ubuntu Than Automatix

It's also worth noting that the authors of these respective applications have far and away more maturity, professionalism, and just plain clue than the author of Automatix.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122797 [ubuntuforums.org]

See for yourself.

Better luck next time

The second she mentioned command-line was when Automatix died as an easy to use tool for the average. My sister can't even configure networking in Windows or update her virus scan, yet she is suppose to bring up the command-line. Ok, I have been reading slashdot for years and Linux has been over-optimistically touted as the alternative to Windows year after year. Yet, we are in 2006 and Linux is still just a hacker OS. What is the hold up? Ease of use by itself won't bring users but Linux has to claim that before it even tries. Oh well, better luck next time

Linux/Apple for coorporate desktops

My experience is, that the main reason for switching to XP from 2000 is for the familiarity of the users. Apart from not being supported/updated at some point in the near future, there's really no good reasons for a switch to XP.

For that reason, I reject the coorporate focus on computer desktop OS's and the focus on what companies want on their computers. It's not a question of security, and if it was a question of compatibility and standards, everyone would be using Apple or Linux.

As I see the twist, the hole coorporative element evolves around what their employees are accustomed to. Whatever a SA wants to run as a server, doesn't depend on their desktop OS's.

Sure point and click works out great on MS server and even better on Apple's, but most SA's uses scripts anyway. So it really doesn't matter what the server OS is.

Ubuntu is a nice step for Linux desktops, and I've switched myself, without being fanatic about it. It just suits my needs better than any other OS's I've tried.

The switch was even easier, with the help of automatix, I could get my daily routines working out of the box, with allmost no prior experience. It's not there yet, but the new version Dapper Drake 6.04(6.06) is even more userfriendly. At the moment you can actually boot the live cd and make a complete installation, while surfing the web, writing emails or whatever you want to to from the live cd, then restart and have a fully working Ubuntu system, dualboot or not.

There's even a script that will install most of the necessary things to get you going called bumps available on ubuntuforums, since automatix doesn't support Dapper. Still got the -force option though.

My point is, if the majority make a switch, the coorporate system will aswell. Theres pro's and con's about everything. It doesn't matter what the OS would be. And I'm pretty sure desktop OS has nothing to do with the choice of any company. If their users don't feel at home using it, they will switch.

Xgl and compiz could be the beginning of a complete new era of graphics on our desktops, and MS/Apple can hardly be expected to keep up with this progress, since so many very skillfull people help maintaining Linux. I've tried Linux many times since 1996 in various distros, but I have never seen such a helpfull community as the ubuntuforums. And I've never seen such a fascinating desktop system, as the combination of Xgl and compiz.
/ahave

Don't Believe the Hype... says the great rap song.

First things first. Automatix is aggressively marketed and I'd be careful of the hype. But, in fairness, the person who does it is also very accessible and is quick to work out bugs, so he deserves credit on those fronts. Ubuntu Guide at EasyLinux I prefer the new Ubuntu Guide at http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu [easylinux.info]. It is a simple command-line driven guide that *anyone* can contribute to and which gives you all the same options, if you want to do the apt-get work yourself. Instructions are easy to follow and by the end of it, you know what you've installed, how you did it and, if you'e a newbie, will feel they've learned a lot without much effort. EASYUBUNTU If you prefer the "Just Works" approach and don't care about learning a little about Linux, Apt and the command line (nothing wrong with that, so ignore the Linux snobs that say criticize you) I'd suggest trying EasyUbuntu instead of Automatix at http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/ [freecontrib.org]. UBUNTU IS NOT THE MOST USER-FRIENDLY SYSTEM OR THE MOST REFINED LOOKING I use Ubuntu. I love Ubuntu. But, Ubuntu is no easier to install than Fedora or SuSE. In fact, I'd argue they are easier to install and more complete in their installation options. As well, they are slicker and more professional at the intallation level and on the desktop... by a longshot. They are far more refined. Anyone who disputes this is probably caught up in the Ubuntu hype a bit too much. It's the trendy distro of the moment. Don't underestimate how that clouds people's perception of it. But, I prefer Debian-based systems, so have gravitated to Ubuntu and left Fedora and SuSE, although both were better a recognizing and setting up my monitor and printer. And I say the above as someone who loves Ubuntu.

New User and Automatix

I just installed Ubuntu on an old box and I have been impressed by how easy it is to use versus Linux a few years ago. From what I could tell Automatix did not screw anything up. My biggest hassle was trying to get a Wifi card to work. All my hardware was recognized and worked out of the box except this card and it was a real hassle to get it working. Other than hardware not being recognized during the installations I don't see any big obstacles from non technical people using it. The Synaptic Package Manager makes installation of other software easy. I expect to have some learning curve switching to a new operating system. It is not like Windows installations always go smoothly. On my first XP install I had to unplug all of the USB devices and plug them in one at time to get them to work properly.

Removing apps installed by Ubuntu

And for those who would like to remove the apps installed by Ubuntu ... these instructions [ubuntuforums.org] will come in handy.

Automatix ... author beware!

What's the bet on how long it takes Les Editions Albert René to take the author to court? They successfully did it to Mobilix, on the farcical premise that it sounds like Obelix.

Kubuntu

Dunno, didn't read, but as a linux user I have 2 modes, command line and when I use a GUI, I want something that works and supplies me with a rich pleasurable environment. To me Gnome is crap. Why use a GUI if you want simple with no frills, use the command line. I actually like Ubuntu and the premise/release cycle etc., but I prefer Kunbuntu and feel that it should be Ubuntu. For Linux to grow and make even more inroads into the Windows desktop/server environment, Linux must have a desktop distro that (at this point) is based on KDE, and a server distro that has a KDE lite (because it will be the same and familiar, low graphics that is consistent with the desktop but appeals to the server admin). -Shawn

AMD64 anyone?

Automatix :
"It doesn't support Dapper, PPC, or AMD64..."

EasyUbuntu :
"...supporting all the three architectures Ubuntu supports - x86, PPC and AMD64."

Nuff said.

Ok, why isn't this default?

So, why isn't this type of setup default? It downloads all the plugins and installs everything for you. Sounds like Ubuntu needs two installations types, "Standard - Automatix with everything" and then "Detailed - advanced users"....

-m

I don't get it...

I'm a Linux newbie, and I fail to see the point of something like Automatix.

Caught up by the Ubuntu hype, I've recently set up a dual-boot machine running WinXP and Ubuntu. I had a brief experience with Mandrake a few years back, and ran into so many hardware issues that I decided to go back to Windows. My Linux virginity was lost, but I still longed for the sweet taste of Windows. I rarely boot Ubuntu (I'm just too comfy with Windows), but everything is running fine at the Ubuntu part of my HD. I've managed to install everything that I needed. By myself. Because it was so easy. As far as my needs go, everything is practically automated through apt/Synaptic. I'm still learning my way around Linux, but I'm very good at cutting and pasting and button-clicking.

That is why I fail to see the usefulness of Automatix. If you can't cut and paste a few lines or select from a menu and click a couple of buttons, you probably can't use Windows too. Hell, if you can install Automatix, you can install what Automatix installs...and if we're talking convenience here, I still don't see the point. Install things when you realize you need them...if you don't know how to do it, just Google and you'll be fine. But here's what really bothers me...

From TFA:

Once running, Automatix got my permission to access Ubuntu repositories and check for some necessary packages in one window. Then, in another window, it showed me a list of all the packages it could install for me and what they contained. I selected the ones I wanted by clicking the check box next to them. I checked everything -- what the heck, Automatix was doing all the work for me, and if something gets messed up, it wasn't my fault!

I might be missing something here due to my newbieness, but...doesn't Synaptic do exactly that for most of the programs Automatix installs? Maybe I'll have to add a repository, but so what? In the end, Automatix might even make things harder for the newbies, because it doesn't need to exist and will make people dependent on a crutch when they already have a health leg.

the emphasis is wrong!

...."With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for beginners, there have been"... Maybe if we change this sentence to: With the growing amount of talk on the usability of Linux for people whome don't care about computers, there have been... we can do it right. People don't want to LEARN to use linux ... if you trick them into a not-so steep learning curve they jump out. We need to think about the following ... why would I choose linux if I don't care about computers? or better why would I choose a volvo instead of a mercedes? what is the advantage for people to choose linux? ... trust me "open source" means nothing to them. if there is a "but" in your answer it is wrong. greetings, il dottore

I've always wondered about this...

... but as far as I can remember, MP3 playback and DVD stuff worked out of the box on Ubuntu for me. Or did I install additional repositories and just forgot about it? I'm not 100% on DVD, but I'm pretty much sure MP3 always used to "just work".

Or is it possible Ubuntu stick those things into distro's that are going outside of the US by default?

Anyway, I don't think getting the stuff automatix does manually is necessarily that hard, but I can't say that I didn't use it myself last time I set up a box...

WiFi Advantage

I would agree that Ubuntu is not leaps and bounds ahead in a user-friendly way. The one real difference between Ubuntu and other distros I have tried (Fedora, Suse, Debian), is that it's the only one to have successfuly detected my Wirless card (belkin pcmcia) in my laptop during installation. It also configured all the (fn) shortcut keys such as backlight dimming and volume controls.

Ubuntu n00b, not using Automatix

Not that I have a problem with Arnieboy, or his work; power to him. But I didn't get into Linux to have some program "do it for me," sight unseen. If I wanted that, I've still got XP on my other partition..

I want to emphasize here that I have no issue with Automatix, per se. I don't like the idea of n00bs being dependent on it, though, and I really don't like how it seems to be the standard response to n00bs on the Ubuntu forums asking for install help. I mean, what happens when, six months down the road, somebody wants to install something that isn't on Arnieboy's list? They have no practical experience installing applications in Linux, and they're lost. Again.

To summarize: I don't want a goddamn fish. Teach me.

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

From your link:
To start a root shell (i.e. a command window where you can run root commands) use:
sudo -i
How is that more secure than enabling the root account?

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

How is that more secure than enabling the root account?

Aside from making dictionary attacks a little harder to pull off, it isn't really inherently more secure. But Ubuntu is often recommended for new converts from Windows, where people are used to doing everything as root. Ubuntu disables the root account out-of-the-box to strongly discourage people from logging in as root for daily work, where they can unintentionally do a lot of damage.

FUD, not informative

Let me first say that I don't use Automatix, so I do not claim to have much knowledge about what security holes it may or may not have. But your post is BS.

Enabling the root account is "a huge security hole?" I almost never log in as root, but the account is enabled (with a strong password). Did you even read the link you posted? It warns of a few potential downsides to enabling root (as well as a few downsides to not enabling root). Of coarse sudo is better for day to day use, but enabling root is not a "huge security hole".

You have to be trolling.

Re:FUD, not informative

It's not Automatix' use of a root acount that is most troubling. Automatix also replaces your /etc/apt/sources.list (without backing up or asking), and use -force yes during installs which is generally a nyet.

That being said, Automatix rocks, and I have used it on all of my ubuntu installs with no problem (other than repositories at freecontrib being down occasionally).

Easyubuntu is good too, and safer, but is not available for Dapper yet. Of course, replacing all instances of "breezy" with "dapper" in a detect.py isn't all that difficult either, now is it.

I'd recommend Easyubuntu.

-rcmiv

HA! HA! I have the cube!

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

Just like the root account, accounts with full system privaleges via sudo are only as secure as the number of people that have that accounts password. Don't get me wrong, I love sudo, it keeps me from having to su to install software, edit files, or update the system, so it's very convenient. But saying that enabling root access by adding a password enables a 'huge security hole' is just a bad case of hyperbole.

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

Or am I missing something here?
Cluelessness of a fanboy.

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

I'd argue that requiring a user to specifically login as root to screw up his system is no more dangerous than alowing him to do it from his own shell. Hell, Ubuntu doesn't even default to requiring a seperate root password to muck things up, you can use your own.

Actually the sudo way IS the security hole...

First of all enabling the root account is in no way less secure than giving unrestricted sudo access to a user account. In fact it's actually quite a bit less secure if you think about it. Yeah it's handy because you don't need to su and remember TWO really strong passwords, but that's the great part of needing to su. It really makes you think about what you're doing before you do it.

But, besides that, having a passwordless root account (which is what is actually happening on your default *Ubuntu install) means that if you switch to single user mode you can gain full root access to your machine without a password.

So say you're at your buddies house who happens to run Ubuntu. He goes to the bathroom or something... you quickly reboot, boot up in single user mode (very easy to do with GRUB), set a password on the root account, reboot back into multi user mode. When he comes back you might have to make up some story about how there was some kinda weird power glitch or something and his machine rebooted, but other than that you're home free.

Go home, ssh into the machine with your new root account, create an SUID binary somewhere handy, and reset the root account back to normal. There yah go. Permanent root access on your friends hyper-secure Ubuntu machine :).

Basically doing things the Ubuntu way, is doing it the lazy way. Enhanced security via sudo is a total misnomer.

Re:Don't Use Automatix!!!

It's not a huge security hole. It's not a security hole at all. It's just risky for newbies, thats all. No need to ring the oval office.

IIRC, sudo can give a shell root priveliges with something like sudo -k (i don't use the program currently; that might be wrong).

Re:Old news

Agreed. This isn't the same old tired "digg had it last week" thing, either. Automatix has been around for months, long enough to be argued to death on the Ubuntu forums.

Whatup, BL?