I recently installed Ubuntu for the first time in a while, since version 6 actually. My normal laptop runs Debian Etch and hasn´t been updated in about 9 months due to the samba update breaking smbclient on my laptop and thus forcing me to not care too much about updates, but I recently acquired a 1000mhz PIII laptop with 384mb ram, wifi, DVD-ROM, 1400×1050 screen 15¨ LCD (!) and 30GB of hdd. Not bad for free. Anywho, I have this insatiable urge to run bleeding edge software (see openSUSE being always updated / broken on my web server and the deafault ubuntu software repos, although being some of the largest out of all the linux distros (debian probably coming in second) they still don´t have things like Adobe Flash Player. Let´s fix that:
1. Pop open your favorite terminal and ´su´ to root. To enable su in ubuntu, do a
sudo passwd root
and type in a password for your root account, and please, for the love of security, don´t make it the same as your regular user password…all because sudo is a pain in the butt.
2. Type:
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
3. Press Ctrl + O and change the filename to ´/etc/apt/sources.list.old´. Press enter to save it. Press ´y´ to save under a different name.
4. Scroll up to the top line using the arrow keys. Make sure you go all the way to the top. Mash down Ctrl+K to cut line…except we won´t be pasting it anywhere.
5. Paste the following into the file:
# /etc/apt/sources.list file for Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04.
# Put together and tested by John Pyper, BaD_CrC on Freenode IRC.
# Everything here works for me. Your success may vary.
# This is a work in progress.### [UBUNTU]
# url: http://ubuntu.com/
# http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/ is my mirror of choice due to speed and almost instant updates
deb http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/ubuntu/ hardy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/ubuntu/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/ubuntu/ hardy-proposed main restricted universe multiverse
# get security updates from ubuntu security directly only
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security main restricted universe multiverse### [CANONICAL]
# url: http://canonical.com/
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy partner
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-updates partner
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-backports partner
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-proposed partner
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy-security partner### [MEDIBUNTU]
# url: http://medibuntu.org/
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free### [WINE]
# url: http://winehq.org/
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/ hardy main### [VIRTUALBOX]
# url: http://virtualbox.org/
# no hardy repo yet, this works fine with hardy. will update as it becomes available.
deb http://virtualbox.org/debian/ gutsy non-free### [MOBLOCK]
# url: http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net
deb http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/debian/ hardy main### [CORENOMINAL]
# url: https://launchpad.net/~corenominal/
# no hardy repo yet, this works fine with hardy. will update as it becomes available.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted universe multiverse### [GOOGLE]
# url: http://google.com/linuxrepositories/
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free### [VIDEOLAN]
# url: http://videolan.org/
deb http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/hardy-i386/arch ./### [LXDE]
# url: http://lxde.org/
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/lxde/ubuntu hardy main
6. Press Ctrl+O again and change the name back to ´/etc/apt/sources.list´ and hit enter. Press Y again to save under a different name.
7. Press Ctrl+X to exit GNU nano.
8. While still root, type:
apt-get update
and you should see a scroll of all the updates to your package list. Now you can go back to using synaptic or aptitude and be able to select from quite a large range of packages.
Ooh, and one last step…
9. Have fun!