[Neurodebian-users] Software installation

[Yaroslav Halchenko]

On Mon, 09 May 2016, Bennet Fauber wrote:

> I will be installing a number of instances of ND, and I would like to
> preinstall a selection of software as the users will not be able to
> use sudo.  Is there a handy way to install everything?  

Define "everything".  Unlikely you want or need to install actually
everything available from debian/neurodebian repositories.  It might not
be even possible since some packages might conflict

> I was thinking
> that maybe I could grep from the .desktop files all the lines that
> match

> Exec=nd-autoinstall ...

> and run it from the command line, but the format seems not to be
> entirely consistent, e.g., sometimes there is a -p sometimes not,

> nd-autoinstall afni
> nd-autoinstall -p caret

> and sometimes there is more than one version, e.g.,
> fsl-5.0-core:fsl-5.0-core.desktop and
> neurodebian-desktop:neurodebian-fsl-4.1.desktop both seem to get
> installed.

> It also seems that nd-autoinstall may actually start the application
> after installation, which isn't desired.

that was the purpose of the nd-autoinstall script -- to install if not
yet installed and start.  If you just need to install, use plain

apt-get install package1 package2 ...

command

> Any thoughts from people who may have deployed ND machines to, say, a
> classroom, would be appreciated.

Note that at the end of the VM welcome wizard we give options for some
common selections.  Once again -- what collection of things you would
like to install?

I found ansible handy to provide such initial or maintain continuous
"uniform" setup across boxes, since you might want to tune some
configuration as well, not just install a bunch of packages.

-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko
Center for Open Neuroscience     http://centerforopenneuroscience.org
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834                       Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW:   http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik