rvalkass 5 Report post Posted December 15, 2007 I'm hoping this will be the first of a few Linux tutorials I write. I have been asked by a few people recently about how to get software for Linux. They are used to going down to PC World and picking up a CD, putting that in the PC and installing. With Linux that is not how new software is obtained, and this is my attempt to explain how to get new software onto your Linux machine. I use KDE, so this is based around Adept, but it is fairly similar if you use Synaptic or something else. OK, open up Adept. There are a variety of ways to do that, but the easiest is to open the system menu and find Adept. In KDE, its under System: As my system is Ubuntu based, I get asked for my password. You will need to be root to install software, and how you go about that is different between distros. On Ubuntu and its derivatives, you will be asked for your password, like this: You will then be presented with Adept's main screen. This lists all of the software available to you, shows what you have installed already, and if anything needs upgrading. All you need to do now is find the software you want. I find the best way to do that is to use the Search box at the top: If you know the name of the software you want, you can type that in. Alternatively, you can put in a related keyword. For example, the audio player Amarok can be found by searching for "amarok" or "audio", among many other things. If you want more information about a package (a piece of software) then click the arrow to the left of its name. This will give you a lot more information about that package. If you want to install that package then click the Request Install button. This will add that package to the list of things to download. To review the list of what is going to be installed, hit the Preview Changes button at the top of the screen. Quite often the list will contain packages you did not select. Why? Well, each package you download has a series of dependencies. These are other packages which the one you are trying to install needs to work correctly. For example, I selected gimp-print in the list above, and Adept worked out that needed libgutenprintui2-1. I would never have known that, so its quite a helpful feature. When you are happy with your new software choices, hit the Apply Changes button. Adept will then download and install your new software. You can get more information on what is happening during the installation by clicking the Show Details button. When it's done, Adept will take you back to the software list so you can install more stuff if you want. If not, just close Adept. Your new software is ready to use. No restarting, no online registration, no complicated setups, no worrying about losing or breaking the CD. Personally I much prefer this to the Windows method of getting hold of software. Any questions, comments or ideas for another tutorial are welcome. Just post below, PM me or contact me in any other way you can Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
