Is it possible to install ubuntu-restricted-extras without the MS fonts packages?

Is there anyway to do install ubuntu-restricted-extras without the MS fonts packages?

Solution 1:

The package ubuntu-restricted-extras is a so-called "meta package". Such packages do not provide files themselves, but depend on other packages. apt-cache show ubuntu-restricted-extras tells me that the MS fonts (ttf-mscorefonts-installer) are recommended by the package, not mandatory.

The package ubuntu-restricted-addons is always installed when installing ubuntu-restricted-extras. If you want to proceed without installing the MS fonts, install this package directly:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-addons 

The other recommended packages can be installed manually as well:

sudo apt-get install unrar gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse libavcodec-extra-53

If a package depends on ubuntu-restricted-extras, after installing the above packages run:

sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Solution 2:

Install the ubuntu-restricted-extras package. Then note the names of the fonts installed by inspecting ttf-mscorefonts-installer in Synaptic before doing a complete removal of that package.

Then use font manager to disable the fonts whose names you noted.

Solution 3:

Done some research and trials. Turned out your can get the restricted-extras without MS fonts by ~

• Using the software manager to install it and not accepting the terms for installing MS fonts when prompted. This will go on with the installation but omit MS fonts.
• Use the offline installer script and remove lines that copy MS fonts to Ubuntu system.