UBIQUITY(8)

✨ UBIQUITY(8) ✨

okay bestie, gather round 💖 this is the manual page for ubiquity, and it's giving installer energy in the absolute best way. Section 8, LOCAL vibes. Let's get into it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

ubiquity — install Ubuntu from a live CD 🦋

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

ubiquity [--desktop file] [--debug] [--pdb] [--cdebconf] [--automatic]
         [--only] [--query] [frontend]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

ubiquity is a graphical installer for Ubuntu, written largely in Python, and it uses debian-installer (aka d-i, iykyk) as a backend for a whole bunch of its functions. Normally you don't even type it — you just click a desktop icon, and it blesses you with a "wizard"-style graphical user interface ✨. Very main character.

Heads up though: ubiquity must be run as root, and it will escalate privileges for itself using gksudo, kdesu, kdesudo, or sudo as appropriate. It handles its own glow-up 💅

ubiquity has multiple frontends, including one written using GTK+ (gtk_ui) and one written for KDE (kde_ui). The first non-option argument, if any, is interpreted as the name of the frontend to use. So like, you can just say which one you want. No cap.

The following options are available:

🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

• --desktop file — this option gets passed through to gksudo so its privilege-escalation message has a better description. It's only relevant when you're using the gtk_ui frontend. (So basically, it's a lil' label for the sudo popup. Cute.)
• -d, --debug — run in debugging mode, sending verbose information to /var/log/installer/debug that may be useful to developers. (The /var/log/syslog file is usually required in any case, along with /var/log/partman in the case of problems related to partitioning.) Note that passwords will be logged in debugging mode! 🚨 So like… be aware, bestie.
• --pdb — drop into the Python debugger in the event of a crash. Only effective if ubiquity is being run from a terminal. 🐍
• --cdebconf — use cdebconf instead of the traditional Perl debconf implementation. In future this may provide enough memory efficiency benefits to be made the default, but for now it is not really worthwhile and is therefore for experimental use only. 🙈
• --automatic — skip over questions that have been pre-answered by use of a preseed file. This is useful for unattended installations. Basically auto-pilot mode ✈️
• --only — tell ubiquity that it is the only desktop program running, so it can customize its user interface to better suit a minimal environment. This allows the installer to be run standalone, reducing memory requirements. Lean and mean 💪
• --query — print the frontend that would be used and then exit. Just a lil' peek, then bye 👋

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Ubiquity was formerly known as "Espresso", and originally as "Ubuntu Express", which is written and maintained by Javier Carranza <javier.carranza@interactors.coop> and Juanje Ojeda Croissier <juanje@interactors.coop>. This version draws on the work done on Ubuntu Express, but was renamed to avoid confusion, to reduce awkward branding considerations, and because Ubiquity concentrates on reusing debian-installer code and reducing duplicated translation and branding work as much as possible. Ubiquity has now substantially diverged from Ubuntu Express and is an independent project. A whole rebrand era, honestly 🦋

ubiquity was mainly developed by Colin Watson <cjwatson@ubuntu.com> and Evan Dandrea <ev@ubuntu.com>, with contributions from many others. (Shoutout to the whole group chat 🫶)

The mythbuntu_ui frontend was developed by Mario Limonciello <superm1@ubuntu.com>. 📺

💀 reminder: run it as root, don't leave debug mode on with your passwords in there, and --cdebconf is experimental only. Stay safe out there ✨

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🎀 this came out of Ubuntu, dated August 9, 2007, and it lives in the UBIQUITY(8) section of the manual. periodt 💅🌟