DIGG.com: WARNING Automatix Can Break Ubuntu and Turn Your Hair Gray

**ubuntu-geek** · July 19th, 2007

Interesting Automatix discussion on digg.com today because of an article written by pimpyourlinux.com..

http://digg.com/linux_unix/WARNING_A...Your_Hair_Gray

http://pimpyourlinux.com/linux-featu...buntu-install/

Thoughts?

**compiledkernel** · July 19th, 2007

werd.

**Lster** · July 19th, 2007

Yes, I think there are some bad problems with it. Rythmbox broke (stopped playing songs) last time I used it...

**wolfen69** · July 19th, 2007

i myself have used automatix for every install and had no problems. everytime i tried to get codecs "the right way", there was always something that wouldnt play. so i download every gstreamer codec ubuntu suggests, and it still wont play. using automatix has made playing various media seemless.

**picpak** · July 19th, 2007

From the xubuntu blog,

Woah, that threw me off guard for a second there

**Frak** · July 19th, 2007

Nobody said upgrading from Edgy to Feisty was completely foolproof.
Do like what is recommended and backup your files, and just do a reinstall.

**PatrickMay16** · July 19th, 2007

Uh oh! Quick! Shield Arnieboy's eyes.

**picpak** · July 19th, 2007

From the comments:

Anytime a package is conflicting, I use “apt-cache policy package” and see which repositories carry the package. Then I can use “apt-get package=version” to install the correct version, and “apt-cache depends package” and “apt-get rdepends package” to find dependencies. Sometimes I kill the conflicting repository from /etc/apt/sources.list

I did it with Marillat packages and I can do it again. If you can not fix your system because of some weird package and its dependencies… then you can learn. It is just step by step. I think people using the system doesn’t have to know how to fix package issues, but people installing packages should.

Well, as if that isn't incredibly convulted. I haven't seen the majority of this documented anywhere, so I don't see how he expects a new user to know it. Personally, I think it's easier through Synaptic:

Go to Status > Installed (local or obsolete)
Choose the package you want to downgrade, and go to Package > Force Version
Choose a version from the Ubuntu repositories
Click OK, click Apply

**Sunflower1970** · July 19th, 2007

I've used it when I had Edgy. I had one problem early on with it, (my own fault) but it never broke anything else even with upgrades. One tip I can give though, is before any huge upgrades, uninstall everything Automatix installed. Never had any problems.