Ubuntu on XPS M1330 - finishing touches (1)

Our intranet is getting more and more comprehensive, and it is becoming more difficult to function without being able to access it. So, although I have resisted it for a long time, I have now accepted that I should be using Citric client, considering that we have a proper and well administered Citrix server farm setup. I have tested it in the past, on that occasion it was RHEL 4. Citrix client (rpm) for Linux worked first time, and I was talking to the intranet within minutes.

Tried the same on Ubuntu, and the first obstacle was the fact that RPMs and Ubuntu are not exactly best friends. Not to worry, there was a tarball (.tar.gz) file. Downloaded it, unpacked it and run the setup script - only to find that some essential libraries were missing. Well, this is what puts people off Linux - having to resolve these kind of dependencies! It transpires that Citrix Client management software requires OpenMotif installed. OpenMotif comes as one of the "x" libraries, and it is missing...

Before downloading the missing libraries (and as I am working on a new Ubuntu install - on a clean machine - without too many experiments) I decided to first update all the software, using Ubuntu's apt-get program.

Quick check for repositories revealed that none have been configured during the install. Could use the front end tool called Synaptic, but it's quicker to hack the configuration file. But first, I time to become the super-user:

alina@cherry:~$ sudo su - root

[sudo] password for alina:


Now navigate into the 'apt' directory: the default configuration template is there, it's the sources.list file, containing software repositories; it just needs tweaking.

Edit the sources.list file, to uncomment selected debian/ubuntu software repositories. I'm new to Ubuntu, and not entirely sure which repositories are best, so initially I chose the main Ubuntu sites, as well as some of the sites (such as universe and multiverse) mentioned a lot on the web.

root@cherry:~# cd /etc/apt

root@cherry:~# grep '^deb' sources.list

deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy multiverse
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates multiverse

Before apt-get can be run to install anything, the new configuration needs to be kicked into action.

Run:


root@cherry:~# apt-get update


This will have synchronised your local apt-get program with the content and availability of the repositories declared in the configuration file. On my machine, I got the following output:


Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy Release.gpg [191B]
Get: 2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Translation-en_GB [21.3kB]
Get: 3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Translation-en_GB [2395B]
Get: 4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Translation-en_GB [4405B]
Get: 5 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Translation-en_GB [8133B]
Get: 6 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Translation-en_GB
Get: 7 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy Release [65.9kB]
Get: 8 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates Release [58.5kB]
Get: 9 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Packages [1075kB]
Get: 10 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Packages [7664B]
Get: 11 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Sources [306kB]
Get: 12 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Sources [2120B]
Get: 13 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Packages [4065kB]
Get: 14 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Sources [1226kB]
Get: 15 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Packages [158kB]
Get: 16 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Sources [56.8kB]
Get: 17 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Packages [105kB]
Get: 18 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Packages [4263B]
Get: 19 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Sources [27.5kB]
Get: 20 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Sources [937B]
Get: 21 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Packages [39.7kB]
Get: 22 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Sources [7563B]
Get: 23 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Packages [9215B]
Get: 24 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Sources [1702B]
Fetched 7254kB in 2m29s (48.4kB/s)


Unavailable sites will be marked as "Ign", for "ignore". My update manager immediately reported "You can install 142 updates". At the risk that I might forget what the whole exercise was about (get the system to the state where I can install Citrix client to talk to my company's intranet from home), I decided to run the updates. After all, my install CD is rather dated now, and a lot of reported bugs may have been fixed by now. Generally speaking, a blank 'update all' approach may not be the best, but I haven't got the intimate Gutsy knowledge to make a judgement. So, a click on the "Install Updates" at the bottom of the recommended updates list.

[The time is: 12:26. Estimate for the update download time was 1h5m - on my extremely slow 60kB/s connection. The download actually finished at 13:37 - not bad, just 6 minutes out on the estimate...]