As you may or may not know the makers of distributions such as Linux Mint recently have edited some linux configuration files branding the OS to their distribution. This however has caused problems with certain programs, for example Ultamatix. Ultamatix and other programs call for a file lsb-release. This file its located in /etc and is accessed by the command lsb_release. This is used to gather not only the LSB modules, but also information such as the distro's Distributor ID, Description, Release & Codename. This can be displayed by running the command 'lsb_release -a' in the terminal. This is the output for Ubuntu Jaunty:
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maikeru@maikeru-desktop:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
If you were to run any distro and edit lsb-release to that information, Ultamatix would then start up, detect you were running jaunty and load regardless of what distro you were running. This however can be unsafe if the distro you are using isn't based on jaunty. This is because it will load a list of supported jaunty packages and could break or not install if ran on non-jaunty based distro. Most apt-based errors in Ultamatix are caused by a repository that is down, a broken package, or the package you were trying to install wasn't in any of the repository's. This being said, if you were running a hardy based distro you would just change any instance of 9.04 to 8.04 and jaunty to hardy, same rule applies for intrepid.
I am recently running SimplyMEPIS, you may have heard of it as it is a fairly popular distro on distrowatch #12 currently. The first time I tried the latest 1.8.8 it failed.
However, I then tried changing lsb-release to lenny's info since it is a lenny based distro. Once I did that, I tried firing up Ultamatix and worked, I even tried installing 4 random packages (2 sucessful, 2 unsucessful due to the package not being available in my repository's.)
This was easy enough to fix by adding more repository's.
The lsb-release info for lenny if anyone is interested:
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maikeru@maikeru-desktop:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 5.0
Release: Debian 5.0
Codename: lenny
I then tried Mint 5 Elyssa which is based on hardy (LTS for both Ubuntu and Mint). That distro worked fine with the publicly available Ultamatix 1.8.0-7. As you can see the Ultimate Edition Theme Pack 2.4 was being used and working. Just recently did Linux Mint decide to edit their lsb-release in Gloria to their own information.
I personally don't see what benefit a distributor could get out of this and it only makes matters worse for installing applications. If your going to use the base distro's repository's and software than please give them credit and leave the lsb-release info alone. Luckily, TheeMahn has kept this unmodified in Ultimate Edition, and this is why we hardly ever run into problems if ever running Ubuntu packages on Ultimate Edition. I do believe TheeMahn thought about this when he tried creating "Jaunty Jaguar" and I'm so glad he didn't. If I'm wrong about any of this please correct me.
I'm not that great with programming yet, especially linux and python but if there was some way to run a script that would edit such info then I don't think it would be necessary for TheeMahn to have to recompile a new Ultamatix for every debian-based distro and this way he could relax a little more. I don't know if TheeMahn or anyone else knew about all of this or what but it sure has helped me get Ultamatix working no matter what debian-based distro so far.
I've got one more distro I'm personally going to test and I'll add info afterwards to this post via editing. That distro would be a Debian Sid-based distro called Sidux. I have also sparked interest in a MEPIS based distro called antiX SimplyMEPIS that is based on lenny with testing and sid repository's already included. After I test that I'm going to go back to most likely Ultimate Edition 2.3 and take a break. I might do some VM testing in my spare time but as far as I'm concerned I've fixed the problem since I know how to edit this now.
Awaiting a response as to what the future will hold. Its going to be an endless road ahead if you just recompile making special scripts for every debian-based OS. That is until you draw the line and end it yourself, TheeMahn. Much respect either way and I'm very thankful for my Ultimate Edition beta testing account. I'm glad I could be of some help and I hope this helps.
Climby