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Post by deepspeed on Nov 7, 2021 22:11:54 GMT
A metapackage is a package which installs lots of other packages in a group at once. I'm looking at building some new packages for Bodhi and I'd like to know what kind of metapackages the community would like to see and what you would like inside of them.
Metapackages are easy to create, but the research and testing the individual programs they install is time-consuming.
A few examples would be:
games.
I made some games metapackages long ago. They seemed well-liked, but I would need community testing/feedback to make them again today. I would suggest a light-games metapackage and another package for larger/graphics-intensive games.
pen-testing/hacking
I could make a package to install a lot of the freely available pen-testing tools from ubuntu's packages and turn Bodhi into a decent pen-testing platform. You can also just use the backbox repos in Bodhi if you like, but the normal ubuntu tools are all most people need to toy around from a normal desktop distro.
Media
We could make a package to include a standard set of music players, video players, maybe simple recording software, drivers, etc.
groups of themes.
Could be bodhi themes or themes for apps, etc.
Development environments. 'nuff said.
Another good use of these packages is to install optional dependencies which aren't automatically pulled in when installing the main program, for example adding extra plugins/drivers while installing Audacity in order to make a more-functional install and reduce the hassle is also a totally good reason for a metapackage, so if you have any issues like that, feel free to suggest them as well
Preferred format for any specific request:
suggested package name like: bodhi-reallycool-metapackage-name
Then a longer description of the package and why it's useful
Followed by the list of apt-get install names for included packages like:
libreoffice
tux-racer
libncurses5-dev
etc
etc
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Nov 7, 2021 23:08:56 GMT
A metapackage is a package which installs lots of other packages in a group at once. I'm looking at building some new packages for Bodhi and I'd like to know what kind of metapackages the community would like to see and what you would like inside of them. Metapackages are easy to create, but the research and testing the individual programs they install is time-consuming. A few examples would be: games. I made some games metapackages long ago. They seemed well-liked, but I would need community testing/feedback to make them again today. I would suggest a light-games metapackage and another package for larger/graphics-intensive games. pen-testing/hacking I could make a package to install a lot of the freely available pen-testing tools from ubuntu's packages and turn Bodhi into a decent pen-testing platform. You can also just use the backbox repos in Bodhi if you like, but the normal ubuntu tools are all most people need to toy around from a normal desktop distro. Media We could make a package to include a standard set of music players, video players, maybe simple recording software, drivers, etc. groups of themes. Could be bodhi themes or themes for apps, etc. Let me know what you guys are interested in. The games would be welcome for sure. I don't look for games often, but if there's a few already installed I usually find the time to use them. Bodhi already comes with Audacious, Kazam and VLC. Good media programs would be Audacity, Brasero, Kdenlive and Rhythm Box. There are others worth discussing. I'm sure Bodhi devs ylee and thewaiter can offer discussion for pen-testing and themes. |
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Nov 8, 2021 1:08:59 GMT
We have a meta package for Moksha themes, its bodhi-theme-pack and includes all officially maintained moksha themes.
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 8, 2021 5:18:41 GMT
The games would be welcome for sure. I don't look for games often, but if there's a few already installed I usually find the time to use them. Bodhi already comes with Audacious, Kazam and VLC. Good media programs would be Audacity, Brasero, Kdenlive and Rhythm Box. There are others worth discussing I'm sure Bodhi devs ylee and thewaiter can offer discussion for pen-testing and themes. Do you know of any games you like in the repos? I know there are huge piles of games and a lot of them didn't work great on Bodhi back in the day, but there were also a lot of really cool games as well. I'll have to start testing some soon. Feel free to try a handful and let me know what you think if you have time. Personally, I liked the settlers games and I really enjoyed playing Colobot for coding practice, and there were a few simple racing/arcade style games which were a lot of fun. Also really enjoyed Flightgear and Kerbal Space Program, but those games are larger and more CPU-intensive. As for media stuff, this could be split into multiple packages as well, such as "image editing", "audio recording", "Video editing", and "Authors" metapackages to add onto what Bodhi comes with. I'd just need lists of what people who use those apps all the time would recommend/want. The lists are not limited to the ideas I named above. Feel free to get creative with any group of packages that would be useful to you or a group of people like you. |
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 8, 2021 5:26:52 GMT
We have a meta package for Moksha themes, its bodhi-theme-pack and includes all officially maintained moksha themes. I know of the main themes package, but that one installs all the themes at once. We could also make a smaller package of the 5 to 10 most popular themes for a smaller download size if someone doesn't want all the themes but still wants a few options, etc. And we could do similar things with the terminology themes as well if that hasn't already been done and any other themes/icon sets/whatever people want grouped together. I'm hoping for creative ideas we can use to expand our repos in fun, useful ways and take some tedium out of searching these types of packages. Good metapackages can also be used to expand the appcenter and make feel it more extensive.  |
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Nov 8, 2021 22:30:11 GMT
The games would be welcome for sure. I don't look for games often, but if there's a few already installed I usually find the time to use them. Bodhi already comes with Audacious, Kazam and VLC. Good media programs would be Audacity, Brasero, Kdenlive and Rhythm Box. There are others worth discussing I'm sure Bodhi devs ylee and thewaiter can offer discussion for pen-testing and themes. Do you know of any games you like in the repos? I know there are huge piles of games and a lot of them didn't work great on Bodhi back in the day, but there were also a lot of really cool games as well. I'll have to start testing some soon. Feel free to try a handful and let me know what you think if you have time. Personally, I liked the settlers games and I really enjoyed playing Colobot for coding practice, and there were a few simple racing/arcade style games which were a lot of fun. Also really enjoyed Flightgear and Kerbal Space Program, but those games are larger and more CPU-intensive. As for media stuff, this could be split into multiple packages as well, such as "image editing", "audio recording", "Video editing", and "Authors" metapackages to add onto what Bodhi comes with. I'd just need lists of what people who use those apps all the time would recommend/want. The lists are not limited to the ideas I named above. Feel free to get creative with any group of packages that would be useful to you or a group of people like you. To be honest I'm very old school when it comes to games. I would play Tetris if it were here. Maybe once a year I drag out my NES or SNES to play something. Maybe a Breakout or Arkanoid game. You will have to seek out other opinions I'm afraid.  |
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Nov 8, 2021 22:38:25 GMT
For breakout, lbreakout2 works.
Some other games in repos off the top of my head: supertux supertuxkart freeciv pingus frogatto pixfrogger hedgewars frozen-bubble extremetuxracer prboom-plus minetest
more from repos (added later): 0ad wesnoth bumprace chromium-bsu
young kids/educational games: gcompris childsplay hannah ktuberling tuxpaint tuxmath tuxtype circuslinux cutemaze seahorse-adventures
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 8, 2021 23:39:16 GMT
To be honest I'm very old school when it comes to games. I would play Tetris if it were here. have you tried bastet or ltris or petris or termtris or tint or xwelltris? there are lots of tetris clones in the repos Ubuntu has lots of retro-style games and I love them. My favorite game is still Daggerfall, so I get where you're coming from. |
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kev392
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Post by kev392 on Nov 10, 2021 6:43:41 GMT
To be honest I'm very old school when it comes to games. I would play Tetris if it were here. have you tried bastet or ltris or petris or termtris or tint or xwelltris? there are lots of tetris clones in the repos Ubuntu has lots of retro-style games and I love them. My favorite game is still Daggerfall, so I get where you're coming from. I tested a few tetris clones. The 2 that I like are Quadrapassel and KBlocks. |
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Post by thewaiter on Nov 10, 2021 7:28:49 GMT
As far as I know we have 3 meta packages so far in Bodhi. One for all maintained themes, one for Moksha dev purposes and the last one for Moksha AppPack installation. To be honest I do not use any of them but sorta understand what is the goal in this discussion. I was always for minimalistic approach. I always install only essential apps I need for my work. I really do not need a media pack with 5 media players. Why should I need that? Games? I have no emotion for games. I do not play. Sorry if I break the thread enthusiasm... Just my 2 cents.
Stefan
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Post by Hippytaff on Nov 10, 2021 8:03:20 GMT
I helped maintain the meta packages back in the day. They’re a great idea, but they need maintaining, software selection is quite a personal choice and I feel the app pack and standard offer both super minimal to build from, and app pack from which you can remove apps to achieve the same end.
I like the control of standard. Team member moss likes to go from app pack and reduce. My opinion is this covers all that we need for now. At least until we have more person power to maintain stuff. We struggle to keep up with what we already have going on. (I say we, I mean mainly ylee and Stefan)
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 10, 2021 14:43:29 GMT
As far as I know we have 3 meta packages so far in Bodhi. One for all maintained themes, one for Moksha dev purposes and the last one for Moksha AppPack installation. To be honest I do not use any of them but sorta understand what is the goal in this discussion. I was always for minimalistic approach. I always install only essential apps I need for my work. I really do not need a media pack with 5 media players. Why should I need that? Games? I have no emotion for games. I do not play. Sorry if I break the thread enthusiasm... Just my 2 cents. Stefan The point is not to install a bunch of media players, but rather to install a certain media player and add common relevant plugins, and any recommended libs (not deps) which might make it function better in order to save the user the hassle of figuring out how to add the little features later. Same goes for installing a common setup for video editing, authoring ebooks, audio recording, etc. Not every app needs this, but many apps do benefit from having these little additions through a metapackage. As for games, you don't have to play them, but I do plan to at least make a list of some of the better light-ish games which can run on most BL6 systems just to make it easier for new folks to find them. Searching out good games is a daunting challenge in synaptic. |
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 10, 2021 15:06:00 GMT
I helped maintain the meta packages back in the day. They’re a great idea, but they need maintaining, software selection is quite a personal choice and I feel the app pack and standard offer both super minimal to build from, and app pack from which you can remove apps to achieve the same end. I like the control of standard. Team member moss likes to go from app pack and reduce. My opinion is this covers all that we need for now. At least until we have more person power to maintain stuff. We struggle to keep up with what we already have going on. (I say we, I mean mainly ylee and Stefan) The maintenance of a smaller meta-package is usually just updating them when Bodhi moves to a new base. There are situations in big meta-packages like the app-pack where lots of libs need updating, etc, but the types of packages I'm suggesting are mostly for things which don't get lots of updates (themes/icons) and and some basic, smaller packs geared toward specific types of work, thus requiring far fewer listed deps per package and being far less likely to break due to updates. Also, I'll be trying to stay on top of maintenance for these if/when they do need it. And if something turns out to not work out or to be too much trouble, it's easy enough to delete it from the repos. |
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Post by deepspeed on Nov 23, 2021 1:14:29 GMT
So I've been looking through a few games in our repos and I've made a list of a few decent things. Please leave some feedback on the list and feel free to leave more suggestions. I will test them as I have time between dev work. I'll make the actual games packages once I've had more time to play around with more games.
Light Games: These are games which won't take too much HDD space and should run on even the oldest PC's.
beneath a steel sky - Story-based point-and-click games
out of order
flight of the amazon queen
ur-quan masters - space exploration and combat games. Stop the Ur-Quan race from destroying all life in the galaxy.
gbrainy - Brain training games to keep you sharp! They're also fun!
brain party
Medium-sized games: These games may take 100mb or more to install, and will require a slightly more modern PC to run than the oldest systems which Bodhi works on, though the vast majority of PC's should still be able to handle them.
colobot - awesome game for coders, write code to control space-faring bots in an RTS game and save humanity!
megaglest - Fun RTS game similar to the Settlers franchise
Endless Sky - A fun space combat/trading game. Build a fleet of ships and shape the future of the galaxy.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Nov 23, 2021 1:37:00 GMT
As far as I know we have 3 meta packages so far in Bodhi. One for all maintained themes, one for Moksha dev purposes and the last one for Moksha AppPack installation. To be honest I do not use any of them but sorta understand what is the goal in this discussion. I was always for minimalistic approach. I always install only essential apps I need for my work. I really do not need a media pack with 5 media players. Why should I need that? Games? I have no emotion for games. I do not play. Sorry if I break the thread enthusiasm... Just my 2 cents. Stefan
We also have bodhi-printing!
I also don't see much use for meta packages, just replying for fun.
I'm familiar with a few native linux games (posted earlier in this thread), cuz the reason I installed linux in the first place was to use old PCs for games/videos for my young kids, and over time I keep discovering more here and there.
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