[buug] converting Ubuntu to Xubuntu?

[Elizabeth Krumbach]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 12:36 AM, Michael Paoli
<Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> Question about that was asked at last BUUG meeting[0].  Thought I'd
> peek into it a wee bit further.  Most notably, I was curious, does
> Xubuntu use the same repositories as Ubuntu?

I'm a member of the Xubuntu project. As you noticed, Ubuntu and the
other recognized flavors do use similar repositories. I can't speak
for Maverick Meerkat (I don't remember, it's EOL and I don't have an
installed version) but in currently supported versions Xubuntu uses
the "universe" repository too. Technically the universe repository is
fully community-supported (like Xubuntu itself is) so security updates
are not guaranteed by Canonical like they would be in "main" and
"restricted" which are the repositories Ubuntu itself uses.

> o There are various documents/writeups on The Internet that seem to
>   imply doing the Ubuntu --> Xubuntu conversion is quite doable, though
>   potentially a bit hazardous.  One thing I note on most of the
>   documents I easily found, is they seem to all give quite static lists
>   of packages to add, and remove, to do the conversion - so those may
>   only fit a very specific release version, or limited range of
>   versions.  The procedure I gave should be more generic in that
>   regard, by specifically getting the lists of packages, and suitably
>   comparing to determine what's needed, and what should be removed (one
>   could also do a list from corresponding live Ubuntu, as that would
>   avoid the complication of having additional packages one has already
>   installed on one's existing Ubuntu installation).  The documents I
>   encountered also failed to mention updating the CD-ROM (or DVD)
>   source(s) in the apt configuration.

This is the online resource that the Xubuntu team recommends since the
author is diligent about updates (tests them, updates for each version
and links to past ones where the release is still supported):

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purexubuntu

(the one for maverick is here:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purexfcemaverick)

Once that command is run, the metapackage to install to get Xubuntu
is: xubuntu-desktop

That said, your recommended procedure sure is the more intelligent,
portable one that's useful beyond just this conversion.

-- 
Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2
http://www.princessleia.com