Handy App. Site For Ubuntu

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-03-26 04:18pm

I know a lot of fellow SDN denizens have toyed with my OS of choice if only because I deigned it supar, but one thing I find annoying is installing third party applications.

Not any more! Or at least, not any more if you still stick with Ubuntu and haven't already found this site.

GetDeb.net is what I mean. Yes, it's debian packages and we all know of the squabbling over .deb over .rpm for installation formats, but bollocks to that. This works and it's very convenient and quite well stocked.

So there you go. Send any praises in the form of a cheque payable to A.L. Valdemar, at the following address...

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-03-26 04:30pm

So what's the difference between this and the repositories?

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2008-03-26 04:30pm

Last time I installed Ubuntu, I used Automatix. I'll try this when I bump up to 8.04 in May. I'll still have to to the custom repo nonsense and perhaps the Envy script to get Compiz Fusion working, but that's always been the case--and why I'll be waiting 'til May to upgrade.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2008-03-26 04:33pm

Bounty wrote:So what's the difference between this and the repositories?

This has stuff not normally in the repositories and is actually updated once in a blue moon.

Alferd Packer wrote:Last time I installed Ubuntu, I used Automatix. I'll try this when I bump up to 8.04 in May. I'll still have to to the custom repo nonsense and perhaps the Envy script to get Compiz Fusion working, but that's always been the case--and why I'll be waiting 'til May to upgrade.

Bleurgh! Automatix tends to go about installing things in a roundabout way that I hear many complaints about. I have used it, though I think this may be an easier alternative for new software from now on.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2008-03-26 05:04pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Alferd Packer wrote:Last time I installed Ubuntu, I used Automatix. I'll try this when I bump up to 8.04 in May. I'll still have to to the custom repo nonsense and perhaps the Envy script to get Compiz Fusion working, but that's always been the case--and why I'll be waiting 'til May to upgrade.
Bleurgh! Automatix tends to go about installing things in a roundabout way that I hear many complaints about. I have used it, though I think this may be an easier alternative for new software from now on.

Yeah, I read an article about its potential security flaws, and the developer's supposed stalwart belief in the invincibility of his program. The one thing that Automatix does that's really good is grab programs like Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Sun's Java SDK, or other non-packaged software.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-03-26 06:13pm

Java is in the main repos already, and acrobat reader is in the medibuntu repos you need for codecs. I usually compile from source, using stow to make uninstall easy, since getdeb generally doesn't have the few things I need that aren't already in repos (and I don't even do that anymore).

What's the point of automatix with easy nVidia drivers and the medibuntu repos anyway?

Also, I'm already using 8.04, works well and haven't run into serious problems other than broken icons running 32 bit firefox on Ubuntu x86_64, which I solved by running everything in a 32 bit chroot.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2008-03-26 09:49pm

I've been using checkinstall to compile stuff from source lately. It compiles whatever source you used, makes into a .deb and then installs that.