New installation? New to Bodhi? This might help...
 

A new installation of Bodhi is very lightweight, and missing lots of app/tools that you get as a matter of course with other distros. That is all part of the philosophy of Bodhi, but it doesn't help the new user who is struggling to cope.

After every new installation, the first commands you always need are:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade

These take about 30 minutes to run, and I'm afraid you can't leave the computer unattended as it will ask a few questions along the way.

Once they've finished, you still need to download a lot more stuff to make a usable system. After doing several installations, I eventually put all the download commands I need into a single command file which I've attached to the post.

To run the command file you'll need to save it as a file in the top level of your user space, change the permission, and execute it:
chmod 755 bodhi_update_new_install.txt
./bodhi_update_new_install.txt

If you prefer to change the .txt extension to .sh then be my guest, but I don't think it's necessary.

Feel free to edit, amend, update and generally make it your own. You know what you need better than I do. If you think I've made an error, or missed out anything vital, then please let me know and I can save an update.

Enjoy

Bob

Wow cool script Bob :)

Interesting and I hope useful for some users...

Stefan

Thanks, Stefan. I've done about 10 installs now, and it's a great time-saver.

this is just additional installations, not a new version

That's right. You need to install Bodhi first, from the version 5 distribution disk image, then in Terminology run
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade

Then run the command file (after changing its permissions to execute). The command file is interactive and you select just the parts you want; for example, you might not need LibreOffice or printer support. The command file downloads and installs the parts you've selected.

If you need more detailed instructions on downloading the file and running it in Terminology then post another message.

no offense. not sure what you sre doing since i know so little and i do trust stefan 100%. i install the appack and then synaptic and all of the stuff i need via synaptic or bodhi apps. never had any issues. i run krita all the time which is a kde based scne and no issues. so not sure what this is all about - i am probably wrong but hey... it is what it is.

Hmmm do ya know about things like apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::='--force-confold' --force-yes -fuy dist-upgrade"?

I always thought sudo apt dist-upgrade was instead of sudo apt upgrade tho, not that one should run both? I always just do dist-upgrade....

But anyways cool script. Of course everyone uses different apps, and although you prompt for many things, it does force install quite a bit of stuff, including whatever bodhi-apppack is - if that converts regular version to apppack version, seems unnecessary as if people didn't choose apppack distro in the first place, they probably wouldn't want to install it later. Although you've got me curious enough about a couple things I'm going to try like gedit (I was already familiar with nano cuz of using pine/pico on university shell accounts back in the day, but it does have its limitations...). Plus although many may want firefox, some might want it w/o thunderbird, but you bundle them together.

The other thing I might include is a pdf viewer/printer, I use okular but no idea if it's the best choice, just know it works for me. And maybe flatpak and snap support.

hemlocktree: Bob created the simple executable script for his apps installation. He installs the default (bare) Bodhi version and his script is an easy terminal wizard with yes/no options to install apps he consideres to be useful. As he claims, you can edit the script for your needs.

Stefan

Unless you have a 32-bit machine, in which case you have a choice of exactly one Bodhi 5 installation image.

I actually had no intention of releasing the script, but I changed my mind after reading another thread where a new user was struggling to get Music, Video, Template, etc folders in their Home folder; an issue that my script fixes automatically. The script sets up what I consider to be a reasonable system suitable for a new user, enabling them to make a yes/no decision on whether or not it suits them.

The new user can run the script as-is. The experienced user can take whatever they need from it and leave the rest (as the song puts it).

Well, I wasn't aware so thanks for the heads-up. However, one of the questions that pops up during the first upgrade is to select an appropriate keyboard layout, which I don't think can be avoided or forced. There is also another question about setting up some GRUB options which might not be forced, either (not sure). If the user has to hang around to answer those questions then maybe it's best to keep them awake by periodically requiring them to push the Y key from time to time....

thanks stefan

I will take a look at this when I find time. Unfortunately I use a lot of VMs with snapshots and on the ones with BL installed I always take a snapshot after installation BUT this is after I install and do a upgrade dist-upgrade :( Hmm seems like another VM installation is due to examine what is pulled in when one updates/upgrades.

But anyways it is ALWAYS possible to upgrade with no user intervention. I don't think you were around when Bodhi had offline installers for all the software on our Appcenter, at the time over 200 in 3 different architectures (32 bit, 64 bit and arm). We called these offline installers bod files and they had to be able to install the software packages with no user intervention. Even ones using ncurses dialogs and whatnot. Sometimes it was challenging, I know because I ended up with the job and eventually wrote a python library/script to automate the process for me.

Anyway looking at this is low priority but I will try to remember and let ya know :)

seems like a helpful addition to me as well. thanks for sharing your hard work :)

i was under the same impression. hopefully someone with a bit more understanding can weigh in on which is a best practice fit for bodhi.