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."

Comments

Hehe

[Z0mb1eman]

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.

Not Troll, I Swear

[Bombula]

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

[Jerf]

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

[RedBear]

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.

Not the best solution

[xenocide2]

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?'

Ubuntu craze

[porkThreeWays]

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.

Re:Uhh...

[OMRebel]

The point is for newbies to Linux, like myself, they are able to get everything installed with a single script that would take hours and headaches to get setup. I'm sure I could have gotten all of the codecs installed manually by taking the time to research and install everything by hand. However, with Automatix, I was able to get all of my codecs, firefox plugins, MS TTF, Java, and DMA done in one easy move. If I were try to just get those items installed and setup with my limited knowledge, I would have really struggled, and probably reverted back to Windows, as Ubuntu would still have been crippled in my mind. But, because of Automatix, I'm now running Ubuntu full time, and not missing anything I would have had to do without if I couldn't have got it setup by myself.

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

[rduke15]

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.

Here are five ways it is better

[Pausanias]

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.

Some words on the installer and Easy (K)Ubuntu

[ickeicke]

Kubuntu (and i am pretty sure Ubuntu too) will have a graphical installer for the live cd; Espresso It will even include a GUI tool to resize and edit partitions and the default option is no longer to format the entire harddisc.

And when Automatix is concerned, EasyUbuntu has the advantage of being able to install ATI drivers (or at least they claim so) and it works for Edubuntu and Kubuntu too (though unsupported).

But you to get it to work on Kubuntu, you need some Gnome packages, so you might want to take a look at Easy Kubuntu :) .

And lastly, some explanation about all these install-apps by (one of) the maker(s) of Easy Ubuntu:

keyes
11-15-2005, 04:10 PM

If you use Kubuntu please use Easy Kubuntu (created by Olwin and Anbreizh from Ubuntu-fr in collaboration with me, they help me creating Easy Ubuntu and I help them to create Easy Kubuntu, source code is very similar). Automatix is a fork of Easy Ubuntu written by arnieboy (from ubuntuforums). Automatix is more complicated but have more features than Easy Ubuntu, it's the good choice for advanced users. Begginers must use Easy Ubuntu, it's a very easy way to set up correctly Multimedia, web and other needed things. Easy Ubuntu is very safe and don't change the default applications and behaviors of Ubuntu.

Why modded funny? Basically true...

[cyxxon]

...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

[51mon]

"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).