ubiquity is a graphical installer for Ubuntu, written largely in Python, using debian-installer (d-i) as
a backend for many of its functions. It is normally invoked from a desktop icon, and presents a
"wizard"-style graphical user interface. ubiquity must be run as root, and will escalate privileges for
itself using gksudo, kdesu, kdesudo, or sudo as appropriate.
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.
The following options are available:
--desktopfile
This option is passed through to gksudo to provide a better description for its privilege-
escalation message. It is only relevant when using the gtk_ui frontend.
-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.) Notethatpasswordswillbeloggedindebuggingmode!--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.
--only
Tell ubiquity that it is the only desktop program running so that it can customize its user
interface to better suit a minimal environment. This allows the installer to be run standalone,
reducing memory requirements.
--query
Print the frontend that would be used and then exit.