[conspire] "OK, I've just installed Ubuntu for the first time, and it's the 6.06 LTS Desktop. Now what?"

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 20:36:15 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):
> 
>> Go to the following URL with Firefox:
>> 
>> http://linuxmafia.com/isos/dapper/fresh-ubuntu-dapper
>> 
>> Save the file to your desktop and close Firefox. Right-click the file and
>> click Properties. Click the Permissions tab and check all three Execute
>> checkboxes. Close the window. Double-click the file and click the "Run in
>> Terminal" button. Enter your password when prompted, and wait for the
>> window to disappear. Enjoy!
> 
> Nice little script.
> 
> It might be worth mentioning that this pulls down and registers some
> package-signing key onto i386 Ubuntu, then installs your custom
> sources.list for Dapper Drake, a bunch of software-compiling tools, Sun
> JVM 1.5.x, Macromedia Flash, some GNOME multimedia apps, Microsoft Web
> Fonts aka MS TrueType Core Fonts, and some scripts/whatever to implement
> freedesktop.org's XDG[1] menu scheme.

Yes, that is well worth mentioning, but the need for this script arises
out of the tendency of those who ask the question in the subject line to
mention it first, typically in a "How do I...?" context.

> Too much GNOME and proprietary gunk there for me, but many will like it.

Anyone can take a look at the contents of the script, and if you see
something there that you know will not be to your liking, you're welcome
to take what you do like and leave the rest. Doing so will be especially
useful in the situations in which I warned against using the script. The
script as-is is definitely not one-size-fits-all, but rather
one-size-fits-many-who-can't-find-stuff-in-their-size.

> Script referred to includes:
> 
>  sudo rm sources.list
> 
> I realise that hacking such little one-off scripts quickly reaches
> diminishing returns.  However, in the name of not burning bridges, you
> might want to do:
> 
>  sudo if [ -f sources.list ]; then mv sources.list sources.list-$(date -I); fi;

This might very well be useful to anyone who gets the bright idea of
running the script on anything other than a fresh install, where there are
no bridges to burn. Still, anyone who has already tweaked their
sources.list "just so" and wants to keep it will have the sense not to run
the script on that system.

> (I readily confess to a mania for ISO-8601 sortable date format[2], but

And you are to be commended for that. I still gravitate first to the local
fiat, but any time its validity or usefulness comes into question, I jump
head-first into ISO 8601.

> you're less likely to clobber something valuable than with renaming to
> *.bak, etc., not to mention with "rm".)
> 
> [1] http://www.redhat.com/archives/xdg-list/2003-March/msg00041.html
> 
> [2] "Yanks and Europeans, we are the big-endians.  You will be
> assimilated." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601