Yesterday I was reading an article at <a href="http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2663/how-to_get_full">http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2663/how-to_get_full</a> which promoted an &quot;easy&quot; way to improve multimedia capabilities for ubuntu.&nbsp; My question is not about that article, but about some implications of the method they proposed. I am hoping to learn a few things (after all, that is why I am exploring Linux) and maybe start a discussion others might find useful.
<br><br>The article wanted to reader to replace the content of /etc/apt/sources.list with the contents of <a href="http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2865&amp;stc=1">http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2865&amp;stc=1
</a> presumably because this would be easier for the user then typing the stuff in.&nbsp; <br><br>1) My generic concern is that people might get themselves in a world of hurt by following that form of changing repositories.&nbsp; There is no way for the author to know what is being replaced and too many users would not know what harm they could be doing.&nbsp; This technique could silently cause the user to totally lose access to repositories they had added.
<br><br>2) A specific concern is with some of the changes which purport to &quot;<span name="intelliTxt" id="intelliTXT"><i>link to <b>U.S. repositories from Ubuntu</b><span style="font-style: italic;">&quot;</span></i> for no particular reason.&nbsp; For that matter, are these even sites authorized by Ubuntu?&nbsp; Whois is unclear tho pinging the domain resolves to an IP address for whom the whois org-name says Margolis IT Solutions Limited t/a mNET.&nbsp; How does one know what URI's to trust just because of some recommendation?
<br><br>3) man sources.list says &quot; The file lists one source per line, with the most preferred source listed first.&quot;&nbsp; Does this just mean first line before second?&nbsp; Or does it [also] mean first component (e.g. universe) before the second?&nbsp; And if the latter, I wonder about placing universe before main and restricted for some lines and after for others.
<br><br>4) Still, I might be tempted to try this on some box and see what happens.&nbsp; Anyone see any good contra-indicators?<br><br>5) What would be the likely impact of doing what the artice says but then swapping back to the original 
sources.list afterward?<br clear="all"></span><br>-- <br>"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."<br><br> Patrick Henry quote