Development for Automatix2 for ubuntu has ended. Development is now exclusively for pioneer warrior linux. I haven’t checked out the community distribution yet, but I’m downloading the iso to give it a look when I’ve got a bit more time.

If your not familiar with the Automatix project, it’s an easy to use package manager that focuses on only the most installed linux software, especially the packages that aren’t available in debian, or ubuntu repositories due to qualms about open source, completely free software. Most users run windows with probably only a few pieces of open source software, so the Automatix team try’s to ease the transition to an open source operating system without giving up your easy to use dvd playback, or proprietary media codecs.

Anyways onto running automatix…

Download the .deb package for 7.10 gutsy from http://www.getautomatix.com/wiki/index.php...Gutsy_i386.29

After that’s installed, when you try to run it from Applications ->System Tools, it’s going to fail and prompt you that it’s only for gutsy’s distribution. To get around this, your going to have to edit your startup.py file.

sudo gedit /usr/lib/automatix2/startup.py

#get distro version…
time.sleep(.5);
conf.uVersion = getDistVersion()
getDesktop()
self.splashArea.prog.set_text(”Found %s…”%conf.uVersion)
update_ui()
time.sleep(.5);
if axConf.distro[’version’] != conf.uVersion or axConf.distro[’name’] != conf.uName:
self.splashArea.window.hide()
alert(”This version of Automatix is for %s %s only”%(axConf.distro[’name’],axConf.distro[’version’]),sys.exit)
#check enviroment for synaptic ect…

find that block of code and make it look like this:

#get distro version…
time.sleep(.5);
#conf.uVersion = getDistVersion()
getDesktop()
#self.splashArea.prog.set_text(”Found %s…”%conf.uVersion)
update_ui()
time.sleep(.5);
#if axConf.distro[’version’] != conf.uVersion or axConf.distro[’name’] != conf.uName:
#self.splashArea.window.hide()
#alert(”This version of Automatix is for %s %s only”%(axConf.distro[’name’],axConf.distro[’version’]),sys.exit)
#check enviroment for synaptic ect…

Once those lines are commented out, save your file and run it again. Should be good to go.

Or you can just download my startup.py file to your desktop and run these commands:

sudo cp /usr/lib/automatix2/startup.py /usr/lib/automatix2/startup.py-bak

to backup your original file, then:

sudo mv ~/Desktop/startup.py /usr/lib/automatix2/startup.py

Then you should be good to go.

I originally found this solution while looking for support to get Automatix2 working on Debian Etch r3 since the only deb package for Debian is for Etch r0. Somebody commented out the distribution checks and posted the solution to a forum. I tried the same thing on my beta of ubuntu after it worked so well on debian. Thanks to whoever found this hack 1st, I'd link it but I can't seem to find it now.