ubuntu-defaults-template(1)

📦 version 0.57, in ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 NAME 💖

ubuntu-defaults-template — the lil script that makes a skeleton defaults customization package for you 🎀 (yes bestie, this is its manual page, you're in exactly the right place).

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ubuntu-defaults-template [ --quiet ] packagename

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so. The ubuntu-defaults-builder project is the whole vibe: it lets you easily create a "default settings" package for Ubuntu, and then build a customized image with it 🦋. The main purpose of all this? To provide a standard and safe way to create localized Ubuntu images, or OEM custom projects. Periodt.

The ubuntu-defaults-template script will generate a source package with all the customizable settings in it — think stuff like desktop/background.jpg and webbrowser/bookmarks-menu.txt 💅. And when it's built and installed, it will take the necessary actions to modify the system-wide defaults for desktops, programs, etc. It's giving "set it and forget it" ✨.

The first step is to call ubuntu-defaults-template with the target package name as an argument, for example "ubuntu-defaults-french" or "mockbuntu-default-settings". This will create a source package with the given name in the current directory, with a set of (disabled) example configuration files, and a standard debian/ packaging (using mostly dh_ubuntu_defaults, iykyk).

Then you customize the individual configuration files like webbrowser/bookmarks-menu.txt or unity/launchers.txt to your needs, and then run dpkg-buildpackage(1) to build the source and binary packages. Once you install the generated .deb, new users will from then on use the new default settings 🌈.

After you have done this, you can build installation images using ubuntu-defaults-image(1). Slay.

💅 CONFIGURATION 💅

At present you can change the following defaults:

  • Desktop background image (desktop/background.jpg)
  • Additional .desktop files (desktop/*.desktop, particularly useful to provide launchers for web applications) 🔥
  • Default desktop session in login managers (desktop/default-session.txt) — Supports LightDM and GDM right now.
  • Default applications (desktop/default-applications.txt)
  • Webbrowser start page (webbrowser/startpage.txt)
  • Additional Webbrowser bookmarks in the Menu and in the Toolbar (webbrowser/bookmarks-menu.txt and webbrowser/bookmarks-toolbar.txt)
  • Webbrowser default search engine (webbrowser/searchengine.txt)
  • Radio stations in Rhythmbox and Banshee (multimedia/radiostations.txt)
  • Additional launchers in Unity and Unity 2d (unity/launchers.txt).
  • Internationalization support (i18n/language.txt, i18n/langpacks.txt, i18n/keyboard.txt)
  • Additional icons (icons/, *.jpg, *.png, or *.svg, in the directory hierarchy given in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/)
  • Extra packages (depends.txt and recommends.txt)

Except for desktop/background.jpg, all configuration files are simple text files with one entry per line. Lines which start with '#' are ignored and can be used for comments 💬. Each configuration file has comments which document the format and give some example entries. Cute, right?

🧚 MACROS 🧚

All configuration files can contain macro variables which will be expanded when building the defaults package. At present, these variables are known:

  • ${distro_release_number} — The release number of the Ubuntu release the package is built on. E. g. "11.04".
  • ${distro_release_name} — The release code name of the Ubuntu release the package is built on. E. g. "lucid".
Unknown variables will abort the package build, to avoid unexpected results. No cap — so pls double-check your macros 🙈.

⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

You can run the /usr/share/doc/ubuntu-defaults-builder/examples/make-example to build a "defaults-builder-test" defaults package in the current directory, which will exercise all possible customizations by uncommenting the examples from the configuration files. Chef's kiss 👑.

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

💜 AUTHOR 💜

ubuntu-defaults-builder is developed by Martin Pitt <martin.pitt@ubuntu.com>. Iconic behavior, honestly 🫶.

okay that's the whole page bestie 💖 this one is page 1 of the General Commands Manual, all about ubuntu-defaults-template, authored by Martin Pitt and dated June 22, 2011 — go make some defaults, you absolute main character 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from