Help me make the switch.
September 1, 2007 11:58 AM Subscribe
I have internet access for a few days. I need to get programs for Ubuntu on a computer that currently has no access. Is there a way to install Ubuntu the computer with access and "Slipstream" a disk with all the modifications I want?
My computer's hard drive went kaput a few months ago. I finally have enough time and money to rectify the situation. My new apartment doesn't have internet access yet, pretty much because I don't have a computer that works yet. I finally got a new hard drive in but haven't begun to rebuild my shattered life.
I've decided to start from scratch with Ubuntu. I'm not going to even mess with Vista.
I'm spending the week out of town doing some house/dog sitting. I've got internet access this week.
I did install Ubuntu on my home computer but found it pretty worthless out of the box. I wanted to be able to get it to at least play DVDs and MP3s.
I know there are tons of useful apps out there that will make my computer useful, but it seems like I'd need an internet connection first.
I have access to a computer at this house and explicitly have free reign over it. I wanted to install Ubuntu on this current computer, then get it up to date with all sorts of useful programs, and then burn this set up on to a disk. My home computer is in a different town than I am.
In Windows I think this is called slipstreaming. Is there a similar process with Ubuntu?
PS I don't know jack about linux or ubuntu. I just didn't want to pay for windows and decided this was as good a reason as any to make the switch blindly.
My computer's hard drive went kaput a few months ago. I finally have enough time and money to rectify the situation. My new apartment doesn't have internet access yet, pretty much because I don't have a computer that works yet. I finally got a new hard drive in but haven't begun to rebuild my shattered life.
I've decided to start from scratch with Ubuntu. I'm not going to even mess with Vista.
I'm spending the week out of town doing some house/dog sitting. I've got internet access this week.
I did install Ubuntu on my home computer but found it pretty worthless out of the box. I wanted to be able to get it to at least play DVDs and MP3s.
I know there are tons of useful apps out there that will make my computer useful, but it seems like I'd need an internet connection first.
I have access to a computer at this house and explicitly have free reign over it. I wanted to install Ubuntu on this current computer, then get it up to date with all sorts of useful programs, and then burn this set up on to a disk. My home computer is in a different town than I am.
In Windows I think this is called slipstreaming. Is there a similar process with Ubuntu?
PS I don't know jack about linux or ubuntu. I just didn't want to pay for windows and decided this was as good a reason as any to make the switch blindly.
Response by poster: Wow. This seems like exactly what I wanted. Will this keep all the codecs etc that I download through automatix?
posted by Telf at 12:28 PM on September 1, 2007
posted by Telf at 12:28 PM on September 1, 2007
From what I've read, automatix is dangerous and shouldn't be used -- it functions in very un-Debian-like ways. (Ubuntu is based on Debian, just with a focus on the desktop.) It manually makes changes that aren't recorded properly by the packaging system. There are system-friendly ways to do everything it wants to, but it doesn't use them, and can potentially damage other packages because of it.
That said, if automatix is packaged as .debs on an Internet server somewhere, and doesn't require internet access once you've downloaded the debs (you'll have to watch to see), aptoncd should be able to get everything you need.
I'd suggest asking on the Ubuntu forums about alternatives. They may also have fixed automatix by now; the scathing code review was probably about six weeks ago, so they've had time to work on it. I would definitely double-check before installing it.
posted by Malor at 12:35 PM on September 1, 2007
That said, if automatix is packaged as .debs on an Internet server somewhere, and doesn't require internet access once you've downloaded the debs (you'll have to watch to see), aptoncd should be able to get everything you need.
I'd suggest asking on the Ubuntu forums about alternatives. They may also have fixed automatix by now; the scathing code review was probably about six weeks ago, so they've had time to work on it. I would definitely double-check before installing it.
posted by Malor at 12:35 PM on September 1, 2007
You could try getting your packages/codecs etc. through EasyUbuntu as well.
posted by mattholomew at 2:34 PM on September 1, 2007
posted by mattholomew at 2:34 PM on September 1, 2007
medibuntu is specifically for getting w32codecs, libdvdcss, ffmpeg, more flexible mplayer (or kaffeine) etc... and you could just download the .debs to a flash disk or cdr and manually place them into apt's cache directory (/var/cache/apt/archives I b'lieve)
posted by dorian at 3:54 PM on September 1, 2007
posted by dorian at 3:54 PM on September 1, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rc55 at 12:01 PM on September 1, 2007