HOWTO: Hoary After-Install Helper

[Nis]

In the tradition of the WAIH (Warty After-Install Helper) the HAIH (Hoary After-Install Helper) has arrived. Or at least a rough version of it. The HAIH is very similar to ubuntu-geek's automation script but with a different philosophy: the HAIH is a simple GUI designed for new users to Ubuntu and Linux in general that will install certain applications and libraries. It's main focus to enable support for things users are used to while using other operating systems, namely Java, Flash, MP3, DVD, and embedded video. Here's what's done so far:

• Flash installation
• Java installation
• Embedded web media
• DVD support
• MP3 playing support
• MS core font install

I'd like to add MP3 encoding support eventually but that will have to be added to ubuntu-backports (which the HAIH uses extensively). Hope some people find this useful.

Attached is the script. Download it and run it with the following commands:

bunzip2 haih-0.8.bz2
./haih-0.8

Let me know of any bugs.

[helmoltz]

Script don't work

rroot@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # bunzip2 haih-0.1.bz2
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih
-su: ./haih: No such file or directory
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls
haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih-0.1
-su: ./haih-0.1: Permission denied
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls -l total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 gibbs gibbs 3109 Mar 30 08:12 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # chmod 774 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls -l
total 4
-rwxrwxr-- 1 gibbs gibbs 3109 Mar 30 08:12 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih-0.1
Syntax error
oot@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # bunzip2 haih-0.1.bz2
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih
-su: ./haih: No such file or directory
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls
haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih-0.1
-su: ./haih-0.1: Permission denied
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls -l total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 gibbs gibbs 3109 Mar 30 08:12 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # chmod 774 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ls -l
total 4
-rwxrwxr-- 1 gibbs gibbs 3109 Mar 30 08:12 haih-0.1
root@Mitac-6120N:/home/gibbs/Stardict # ./haih-0.1
Syntax error
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WHY?
Thanks.

[b3nw]

a) errors because you didn't run the proggy as root.

b) very cool proggy

[ubuntu_demon]

you made a little mistake

bunzip2 haih-0.1.bz
sudo chmod +x haih-0.1
sudo ./haih-0.1

It's nice. But it has to communicate to the user what is happening. Only when I clicked "web media" the word mozplugger was on the screen in a flash. Nothing got installed but it could be that I had everything already. Just helping improving/debugging

I'm more of a commandline user regarding installing packagages. But I know newbies aren't. So this is a very good development!

I have one question though :
Why are you talking about hoary backports (hoary-extras)? nothing from hoary-extras gets installed for me.

Besides new users shouldn't be troubled by hoary-extras and hoary-backports at this point in time. Everything they need they can find in main universe multiverse marillat and maybe this one :

deb http://people.debian.org/~goedson/packages/ubuntu/hoary/gnomebaker/releases/i386/ ./

or is hoary-extras going to make marillat unnecessary ?

[Nis]

If I understand jdong's intentions everything this script will try to get will be in hoary-extras. Sun's JRE, w32codecs, and libdvdcss2 are already there. Combine that with Flash, totem-xine, and mozplugger from universe and multiverse and a user has everything needed for most web browsing. The WAIH used marillat for mplayer and mplayerplug-in, but since things change there it was really difficult to keep the script up to date and make sure everything was working. That and mixing in marillat caused problems without proper pinning.

As for user feedback, there is feedback if you do not have the programs already installed. Synaptic is used to download and install the stuff much like the update-manager does. The flash for mozplugger is a zenity progress bar (I couldn't avoid it completely) that downloads a mozpluggerrc that works for totem-xine.

As for the problems mentioned above, I'll fix them and post a new version.

[ubuntu_demon]

If I understand jdong's intentions everything this script will try to get will be in hoary-extras. Sun's JRE, w32codecs, and libdvdcss2 are already there. Combine that with Flash, totem-xine, and mozplugger from universe and multiverse and a user has everything needed for most web browsing. The WAIH used marillat for mplayer and mplayerplug-in, but since things change there it was really difficult to keep the script up to date and make sure everything was working. That and mixing in marillat caused problems without proper pinning.

As for user feedback, there is feedback if you do not have the programs already installed. Synaptic is used to download and install the stuff much like the update-manager does. The flash for mozplugger is a zenity progress bar (I couldn't avoid it completely) that downloads a mozpluggerrc that works for totem-xine.

As for the problems mentioned above, I'll fix them and post a new version.

I've never had problems with marillat. I don't use mplayer because I prefer totem-xine and xine.

[Nis]

The HAIH has come a long way since version 0.1. The past releases have fixed some stupid bugs on my part (like misspelling the gstreamer0.8-mad package name) and added some notification area action to let the user know when something has finished. The latest release has tightened this notification up some more and things appear to be working very smoothly.

I need to stress that this script is designed to work on fresh installs of Hoary, or at least machines that have only grabbed stuff from the main Ubuntu repos and Ubuntu backport repos. If you've already mixed in marillat or some other repos then the HAIH might appear to not be working. Fear not! It just won't install some packages (like w32codecs) because you've already got it from somewhere else.

I hope to add MP3 encoding support (this depends on whether gstreamer0.8-lame makes it into hoary-extras on Ubuntu backports). Anybody else got any suggestions for good candidates to a fresh (or almost fresh) Hoary install? I'll consider any and all suggestions and those that fit the philosophy I'll add. I'll point out that all candidates must come from official Ubuntu repos or Ubuntu backports and must have some immediate usefulness to a new install. For example, DVD support is something often requested after first installing while games are not (not that there is anything wrong with games, particularly nethack ).

Now on to the next phase: smart attempts at installation!

[Nis]

A couple quick tests and changes and now the HAIH (version 0.6) will pop up an info box informing you if you try to install something you've already got installed. This way the user should only try to install things he or she have not installed previously and makes the script a little more informative. This should cause less confusion over what the script is doing and will put less icons into the notification area.

[Nis]

Oops! I've done something to make this stop working. I'll try to get a fix up soon.

[Nis]

Now it works. Just some wrong grepping but now everything is okay.