Snofrix meta-packages --------------------- In connection with the new versions of Snofrix that are now appearing, I have been building a system of meta-packages. To use them, you need to include the following line in your /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://skolelinux.org/~conrad/debian ./ Although Snofrix is based on Debian/unstable, I suspect there would be no problem to use these meta-packages together with skolelinux sarge, also known as Debian/testing. Unlike the stable branch of Debian, unstable and testing are rather close to each other. Hence these packages could be of interest to anyone now testing skolelinux/sarge. Since snofrix is a live CD (with a possible live DVD envisioned), the metapackages have been divided into three groups: 1) snofrix-cd-* 2) snofrix-dvd-* 3) snofrix-lang-* The original reason for building these packages was to keep better track of which packages were installed, but some of you may find them useful as way of finding interesting software. With your help, I hope to keep these meta-packages as cutting edge and up-to-date as possible. Let me briefly discuss the philosophy behind these meta-packages. Snofrix is a live CD that is meant to make Linux as attractive as possible to school-age children. My point of view is that by blurring the line between education and entertainment, we make education more appealing and entertainment more educational. In that spirit, Snofrix includes many games *as well as* educational software. http://www.skolelinux.org/~conrad/snofrix.html Because the CD is size-constrained, the snofrix-cd-* packages will be tightly constrained by me. I welcome your suggestions, but I am unlikely to make large scale changes to these packages. The snofrix-dvd-* packages are much more open-ended. They include the snofrix-cd-* packages as dependencies. If you have snofrix or skolelinux installed on hard disk, and you have no special size constraints, the snofrix-dvd-* packages are recommended above the snofrix-cd-* packages. At this stage, I have not given that much thought to the snofrix-dvd-* packages -- I welcome your suggestions. For the snofrix-dvd-* packages, I will give preference to mature programs with a user-friendly interface. It is not my ambition to include all of Debian/freshmeat in the package lists! Since the original concept behind Snofrix was to make Linux as user-friendly and enjoyable as possible. I do not believe that we improve the user experience by including each and every package. Finally, to obtain your desired localization, you need to include at least one of the snofrix-lang-* packages, and set the $LANG variable to the appropriate value. Both openoffice.org and mozilla-firefox respect the $LANG variable and will start up in the appropriate language. A note on apt-get/aptitude -------------------------- Those of you who have been using apt-get all your life should learn about aptitude. When dealing with meta-packages of this kind, aptitude is a better tool to use, because of its intelligent handling of dependencies. For example, you install snofrix-cd-all, taking with you 500 new packages. Now you realize it was a mistake. If you type apt-get remove snofrix-cd-all, you will only remove the meta-package, and you will be stuck with 500 new packages. But aptitude cleanly removes all of the depencies, with a syntax that is essentially the same as apt-get: aptitude purge snofrix-cd-all. There are occasions where you will still need apt-get however. Suppose you are using Debian/unstable, and you discover that gcompris has a critical bug that makes it unusable. You prefer to install gcompris/testing. But if you type aptitude remove gcompris, you will de-install snofrix-cd-all, and by consequence the entire system! Hence in this case you would use apt-get: apt-get remove gcompris followed by apt-get install -t testing gcompris. In this case, it helps to be stupid. :-) There are some additional issues with aptitude and recommended packages. I use a strict package accounting, because I cannot afford to have recommended packages installed on the CD behind my back. Hence my /etc/apt/apt.conf includes the line: Aptitude::Recommends-Important false; If you are not space constrained, and you want to have the recommended packages, you should change this value to true, or delete this line -- I seem to recall that the default value is true. Let me know what you think! Conrad ------------ snofrix-cd-* ------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED] apt-cache search snofrix-cd snofrix-cd-all - snofrix collected programs snofrix-cd-burner - snofrix programs for CD/DVD burning snofrix-cd-debian - snofrix debian tools snofrix-cd-development - snofrix development programs snofrix-cd-editors - snofrix editors snofrix-cd-education - snofrix education programs snofrix-cd-fonts - snofrix fonts snofrix-cd-games - snofrix games snofrix-cd-graphics - snofrix graphics programs snofrix-cd-internet - snofrix internet programs snofrix-cd-isdn - snofrix ISDN programs snofrix-cd-modem - snofrix modem programs snofrix-cd-multimedia - snofrix multimedia programs snofrix-cd-office - snofrix office programs snofrix-cd-printer - snofrix printer programs snofrix-cd-scanner - snofrix scanner programs snofrix-cd-system - snofrix system programs snofrix-cd-toys - snofrix toys snofrix-cd-xserver - snofrix xserver programs ------------- snofrix-dvd-* ------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] apt-cache search snofrix-dvd snofrix-dvd-debian - snofrix debian tools snofrix-dvd-editors - snofrix extra editors snofrix-dvd-education - snofrix education programs snofrix-dvd-fonts - snofrix fonts snofrix-dvd-games - snofrix extra games snofrix-dvd-graphics - snofrix 3d graphics programs snofrix-dvd-internet - snofrix extra internet programs snofrix-dvd-multimedia - snofrix extra multimedia programs snofrix-dvd-office - snofrix extra office programs snofrix-dvd-system - snofrix system programs snofrix-dvd-toys - snofrix extra toys snofrix-dvd-xserver - snofrix xserver programs -------------- snofrix-lang-* -------------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] apt-cache search snofrix-lang snofrix-lang-bg-bg - snofrix Bulgarian language files snofrix-lang-ca-es - snofrix Catalonian language files snofrix-lang-cs-cz - snofrix Czech language files snofrix-lang-cy-gb - snofrix Welsh language files snofrix-lang-da-dk - snofrix Danish language files snofrix-lang-de-at - snofrix Austrian language files snofrix-lang-de-ch - snofrix Swiss language files snofrix-lang-de-de - snofrix German language files snofrix-lang-en-gb - snofrix British language files snofrix-lang-en-us - snofrix English language files snofrix-lang-es-es - snofrix Spanish language files snofrix-lang-et-ee - snofrix Estonian language files snofrix-lang-eu-es - snofrix Basque language files snofrix-lang-fi-fi - snofrix Finnish language files snofrix-lang-fr-fr - snofrix French language files snofrix-lang-ga-ie - snofrix Gaelic language files snofrix-lang-gl-es - snofrix Galician language files snofrix-lang-he-il - snofrix Italian language files snofrix-lang-hu-hu - snofrix Hungarian language files snofrix-lang-is-is - snofrix Icelandic language files snofrix-lang-it-it - snofrix Italian language files snofrix-lang-lt-lt - snofrix Lithuanian language files snofrix-lang-lv-lv - snofrix Latvian language files snofrix-lang-nb-no - snofrix Norwegian bokmal language files snofrix-lang-nl-nl - snofrix Dutch language files snofrix-lang-nn-no - snofrix Norwegian nynorsk language files snofrix-lang-pl-pl - snofrix Polish language files snofrix-lang-pt-br - snofrix Brazilian Portuguese language files snofrix-lang-pt-pt - snofrix Portuguese language files snofrix-lang-ru-ru - snofrix Russian language files snofrix-lang-se-no - snofrix Northern Sami language files snofrix-lang-sl-si - snofrix Slovenian language files snofrix-lang-sv-se - snofrix Swedish language files -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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