[PLUG] New System Setup

[MJang]

On Fri, 2011-04-15 at 23:24 -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:05:41 -0700
> Tim <tim-pdxlug at sentinelchicken.org> dijo:
> 
> >> So is Ubuntu Desktop where I want to be for this simple stuff or do
> >> I want a server class version of Ubuntu? The splash screens for the
> >> Ubuntu SW  site says 1000's of programs, but the largeswt list I get
> >> there is 267, big difference. 
> 
> >With any major Linux distribution, you'll have access to more or less
> >the same set of software.  Generally the only difference between
> >versions of a distribution (and even different distributions) is the
> >software that is installed by default and possibly what kinds of
> >package management tools they rely on.
> 
> With any fresh install of Ubuntu you will have very few packages
> available. That is because they ship Ubuntu with most of the
> repositories disabled.
> 
> Go into System > Administration > Software Sources and enable the
> additional repositories. You should end up with 25-30,000 packages. You
> can also enable the repositories from within Synaptic Package Manager. 

The other way to do it is direct, via the /etc/apt/sources.list file.
The additional repos are there, just commented out. Basically, repos are
in four categories (+ a few others)

Main (what can be installed at first)
Restricted (non-free software)
Universe (Open source sw not supported by Ubuntu)
Multiverse (non-free software, not supported by Ubuntu)

For more info, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu
and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/CommandLine 

In addition, I normally tinker with the actual repo URLs. The default
URL IIRC (even though it's "us.archive.ubuntu.com") usually downloads
direct from Ubuntu servers in the UK, which can be a bit slow. I
normally switch that off to mirrors.kernel.org. (Last I checked, the PSU
mirrors seem slow too, I think they have a slower pipe.)	

Thanks,
Mike