-addons
vs -extras
Looking at the packages it's easy to tell these are metapackages - they're just depending on other packages and are empty by themselves. The only reason for their existence is to ease the user in installing a set of packages by just setting dependencies.
By looking at the dependencies of these you can see that -extras
is depending on -addons
, thus making the former an extension on the latter.
The description of both packages (apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-addons
):
Commonly used restricted packages for Ubuntu
This package depends on some commonly used packages in the Ubuntu
universe and multiverse repositories.
You should not install this package directly, but instead install the
ubuntu-restricted-extras
package.
apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-extras
:
Commonly used restricted packages for Ubuntu
This package depends on some commonly used packages in the Ubuntu
multiverse repository.
Installing this package will pull in support for MP3 playback and
decoding, support for various other audio formats (GStreamer plugins),
Microsoft fonts, Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio
files), and DVD playback.
Please note that this does not install libdvdcss2, and will not let
you play encrypted DVDs. For more information, see
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs
Please also note that packages from multiverse are restricted by
copyright or legal issues in some countries. See
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing for more information.
Now that mystery is solved, let's see what the differences are on the Ubuntu derivative part.
ubuntu-
vs kubuntu-
vs lubuntu-
vs xubuntu-
This just depends on what the derivatives have decided on to ship and recommend. Sometimes this includes Desktop Environment specific packages. Some examples:
- The dependency on
libk3b6-extracodecs
in kubuntu-restricted-addons
is only valid for KDE as this package is for K3b (KDE disc burning application) only.
- The
lubuntu
set appears to contain a lot less dependencies and especially excluding the gstreamer
codecs. This may indicate that LXDE's default player is not GStreamer based, and it's sane not to install all kinds of GStreamer libraries probably not being used in a Lubuntu installation.