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Automatix 'Actively Dangerous' to Ubuntu
exeme writes "Ubuntu developer Matthew Garrett has recently analyzed famed Ubuntu illegal software installer Automatix, and found it to be actively dangerous to Ubuntu desktop systems. In a detailed report which only took Garrett a couple of hours he found many serious, show-stopper bugs and concluded that Ubuntu could not officially support Automatix in its current state. Garrett also goes on to say that simple Debian packages could provide all of the functionality of Automatix without any of the problems it exhibits."
This is old news, well Automatix being dangerous in general I mean not Mr. Gattett's report. Automatix has been referred to by many as a tool to "enhance" Ubuntu by lazy users who do not care about system security or stability since Breezy Badger.
I appreciate your zeal on the subject, but if Ubuntu distributed MP3 without paying for the license in certain countries (like USA), they would be in serious legal trouble. However, in Ubuntu 7.04, it will automatically install the proper decoder for you the first time you try to play an MP3. It works, it's painless, and it's the best we can do until we get someone in Congress (or your respective national legislature) brave enough to destroy software patents.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
The article is a technical crictism of Automatix, how it doesn't follow proper package rules, etc.
This is the conclusion to the article, which sums it up pretty well
Automatix is barely needed anymore. You can do just about anything through the standard repos these days.
kill all the fucking niggers
Erm, did you even read the analysis? Automatix craps untracked files all over the user's system. It makes to effort to interoperate with Ubuntu's package manager (dpkg) and is even prone to race conditions that could leave the system unbootable!
They have. There's Debian-Multimedia, which has been around for a few years. I know there's one or two specific to Ubuntu, five minutes Googling will probably find one. I've been using D-M for years now and have not had a problem. Automatix is an ugly hack and should be avoided at all costs.
They already have; the repositories are called 'restricted' and 'multiverse' (the former is supported by Canonical, the latter is not).
The summary is misleading... in particular the use of the word "illegal."
Automatix is a utility that automates the installation of a bunch of software that is considered "must have" for people just switching to Ubuntu. For instance, it installed Firefox, mplayer, wine, DVD playing software, and multimedia codecs. (Actually the installer would just give you a list of things you could install, you select the ones you want and click "next.")
I don't really understand why this is being characterized as "illegal software." The packages are already in the usual repositories. The utility would just automate the installation for you. If you live in a country where installing one of those packages is somehow illegal (is this actually the case?), then that's your responsibility. The tool is just an automator intended to ease the transition for new users. It really provides nothing above and beyond the standard packaging interface, except that it was easier (in some people's opinion) to tell new users "install automatix" rather than telling them to open the package manager and list the software they should install.
In any case, the whole argument seems rather pointless. Automatix was created a few years ago, at a time where installation of things like multimedia codecs was perhaps non-obvious. New users were flooding forums with repeated requests like "my mp3s don't play! why?" and "how can I play DVDs on this Ubuntu thing?" Automatix was created as a simple response to that.
In the meantime, Ubuntu has, from what I can tell, cleared up these issues. Installation of codecs is straightforward and pretty obvious. The package manager is very user friendly. In short, there is no need for Automatix. Basically, Automatix was an ugly hack. It's always been recognized as such, and developers have always discouraging people from using it. On the Ubuntu forums, the standard advice is no longer "install Automatix," since it is recognized to be a non-optimal solution.
So, in short... I think this issue has already passed us by.
The 'illegal' part of this thing is nothing but a footnote.
2 007May18/Logs
The important thing is that it's a stupidly dangerous (to your system) piece of software, that most members of the Ubuntu community are trying to inform everyone about. A lot of community sites swear by it, and when anyone argues they give the 'it works fine for me' argument.
This is not the mentality we want to have as a linux community. The automatix team refuses to make their software better, and launced a few all-out assaults on the communities that warn against it. Even going as far as to say (on their website, up until a few months ago) if you go ask help for automatix in their IRC channel, and claim that the people in the ubuntu channel sent you there, they (automatix team) won't help you. Which is stupid in and of itself, but that's the mentality that the automatix people have exhibited time and time again.
Because of this, and in some random attempt to clear their piece of software (and argue about it's proper terminology whether 'package manager' or 'packaging script' or whatever), and to get their lead developer (arnieboy) unbanned from the ubuntu forums (for trolling, more or less), they went to the Forum Council and petitioned, the forum council rejected some stuff, and said that they shouldn't make a decision on the technical merits (since they're not technically qualified or whatever). I imagine this is the fruit of their lack-of-verdict, someone higher up (who was qualified to assess its technical merits) finally took a semi-official look.
I wish I had links for the meeting, here it is: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/ForumCouncil/
Clones are people two.
To get Flash working on 64-bit Linux, try searching your distro's software repository for "nspluginwrapper". Technically it's a bit of a hack, but from a user's perspective it's fairly transparent at getting 32-bit browser plugins to work on 64-bit platforms.
Debian, at least, has it.
Also on Debian, to get MP3 and video codecs add http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ to your list of repositories, either in the Synaptic GUI, or in /etc/apt/sources.list. It's been a while since I first started using it, and I think you might have to reinstall or upgrade some packages that depends on the codecs, but after it's setup it works just like the official repositories.
Maybe not
Medibuntu is a much safer way to install codecs and some third-party apps than Automatix.
That stuff is exactly what the "ubuntu-restricted-extras" package is for.
Rather than screw around with Automatix, perhaps someone should post the following script instructions:
I really don't see how installing some random script off a website and then messing with a new GUI program is any easier than that.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.