How To Use Complete Linux Installer

How do you install an application on Linux? As with many operating systems, there isn't just one answer to that question. Applications tin can come up from and so many sources—it'south nearly impossible to count—and each development team may deliver their software whatever way they experience is all-time. Knowing how to install what y'all're given is part of existence a truthful ability user of your OS.

Repositories

For well over a decade, Linux has used software repositories to distribute software. A "repository" in this context is a public server hosting installable software packages. A Linux distribution provides a control, and usually a graphical interface to that command, that pulls the software from the server and installs it onto your computer. Information technology's such a simple concept that it has served equally the model for all major cellphone operating systems and, more recently, the "app stores" of the two major closed source computer operating systems.

Installing from a software repository is the principal method of installing apps on Linux. It should be the get-go place you look for any application you intend to install.

To install from a software repository, there's usually a control:

          
            
$ sudo dnf install inkscape
          
        

The actual command yous use depends on what distribution of Linux you use. Fedora uses dnf, OpenSUSE uses zypper, Debian and Ubuntu use apt, Slackware uses sbopkg, FreeBSD uses pkg_add, and Illumos-based OpenIndiana uses pkg. Any you lot use, the incantation usually involves searching for the proper proper name of what you want to install, because sometimes what you call software is non its official or lonely designation:

          
            
$ sudo dnf search pyqt
              PyQt.x86_64 : Python bindings for Qt3
              PyQt4.x86_64 : Python bindings for Qt4
              python-qt5.x86_64 : PyQt5 is Python bindings for Qt5
          
        

Once you have located the proper noun of the bundle yous want to install, use the install subcommand to perform the bodily download and automated install:

          
            
$ sudo dnf install python-qt5
          
        

For specifics on installing from a software repository, run across your distribution's documentation.

The same generally holds true with the graphical tools. Search for what you remember you want, and then install it.

Like the underlying control, the proper name of the graphical installer depends on what distribution you are running. The relevant application is usually tagged with the software or package keywords, so search your launcher or menu for those terms, and y'all'll find what yous need. Since open source is all almost user option, if you don't like the graphical user interface (GUI) that your distribution provides, at that place may be an alternative that you tin install. And now you lot know how to do that.

Extra repositories

Your distribution has its standard repository for software that it packages for you lot, and there are usually actress repositories common to your distribution. For example, EPEL serves Ruddy Lid Enterprise Linux and CentOS, RPMFusion serves Fedora, Ubuntu has diverse levels of back up every bit well as a Personal Package Archive (PPA) network, Packman provides extra software for OpenSUSE, and SlackBuilds.org provides community build scripts for Slackware.

By default, your Linux Bone is set to look at just its official repositories, and then if you lot want to utilize additional software collections, you must add extra repositories yourself. You can ordinarily install a repository equally though it were a software parcel. In fact, when you install certain software, such equally GNU Ring video chat, the Vivaldi web browser, Google Chrome, and many others, what y'all are actually installing is admission to their private repositories, from which the latest version of their application is installed to your machine.

Y'all tin too add the repository manually past editing a text file and adding it to your package managing director's configuration directory, or by running a command to install the repository. As usual, the exact command you use depends on the distribution you are running; for example, here is a dnf control that adds a repository to the organisation:

          
            
$ sudo dnf config-director --add together-repo=http://instance.com/pub/centos/7
          
        

Installing apps without repositories

The repository model is so pop because information technology provides a link between the user (you) and the developer. When important updates are released, your system kindly prompts you lot to accept the updates, and you can accept them all from one centralized location.

Sometimes, though, there are times when a package is made bachelor with no repository attached. These installable packages come up in several forms.

Linux packages

Sometimes, a developer distributes software in a common Linux packaging format, such as RPM, DEB, or the newer but very popular FlatPak or Snap formats. You lot make not get access to a repository with this download; you might only get the package.

The video editor Lightworks, for example, provides a .deb file for APT users and an .rpm file for RPM users. When yous want to update, you return to the website and download the latest appropriate file.

These ane-off packages tin can be installed with all the same tools used when installing from a repository. If you double-click the package you download, a graphical installer launches and steps you lot through the install process.

Alternately, y'all tin can install from a terminal. The departure here is that a alone package file you've downloaded from the cyberspace isn't coming from a repository. It's a "local" install, meaning your bundle direction software doesn't need to download it to install it. Most package managers handle this transparently:

          
            
$ sudo dnf install ~/Downloads/lwks-14.0.0-amd64.rpm
          
        

In some cases, you need to take boosted steps to become the awarding to run, and so advisedly read the documentation most the software you lot're installing.

Generic install scripts

Some developers release their packages in one of several generic formats. Mutual extensions include .run and .sh. NVIDIA graphic card drivers, Foundry visual FX packages like Nuke and Mari, and many DRM-gratuitous games from GOG use this way of installer.

This model of installation relies on the developer to deliver an installation "sorcerer." Some of the installers are graphical, while others only run in a terminal.

At that place are two ways to run these types of installers.

1. You lot can run the installer directly from a terminal:

          
            
$ sh ./game/gog_warsow_x.y.z.sh
          
        

2. Alternately, you can run it from your desktop by marking information technology as executable. To marking an installer executable, right-click on its icon and select Properties.

Once you've given permission for it to run, double-click the icon to start the install.

For the rest of the install, just follow the instructions on the screen.

AppImage portable apps

The AppImage format is relatively new to Linux, although its concept is based on both Adjacent and Rox. The idea is simple: everything required to run an application is placed into one directory, and then that directory is treated as an "app." To run the awarding, you lot but double-click the icon, and it runs. There'due south no need or expectation that the application is installed in the traditional sense; information technology just runs from wherever yous have it lying around on your difficult drive.

Despite its power to run as a self-contained app, an AppImage usually offers to do some soft system integration.

If you accept this offer, a local .desktop file is installed to your dwelling directory. A .desktop file is a small configuration file used by the Applications carte du jour and mimetype arrangement of a Linux desktop. Substantially, placing the desktop config file in your domicile directory's awarding list "installs" the application without actually installing it. You get all the benefits of having installed something, and the benefits of beingness able to run something locally, every bit a "portable app."

Application directory

Sometimes, a developer just compiles an awarding and posts the result as a download, with no install script and no packaging. Usually, this ways that you download a TAR file, excerpt it, and and so double-click the executable file (it'southward commonly the one with the proper name of the software yous downloaded).

When presented with this style of software delivery, yous can either exit it where y'all downloaded it and launch it manually when you need it, or you can do a quick and dirty install yourself. This involves two simple steps:

1. Save the directory to a standard location and launch it manually when y'all demand information technology.
2. Relieve the directory to a standard location and create a .desktop file to integrate information technology into your system.

If you're just installing applications for yourself, it'southward traditional to keep a bin directory (brusque for "binary") in your dwelling house directory as a storage location for locally installed applications and scripts. If yous have other users on your system who need access to the applications, it's traditional to place the binaries in /opt. Ultimately, information technology's up to you where y'all shop the awarding.

Downloads often come in directories with versioned names, such equally twine_2.13 or pcgen-v6.07.04. Since it's reasonable to assume yous'll update the application at some signal, it's a good idea to either remove the version number or to create a symlink to the directory. This way, the launcher that you create for the awarding can remain the aforementioned, even though you update the application itself.

To create a .desktop launcher file, open a text editor and create a file chosen twine.desktop. The Desktop Entry Specification is defined by FreeDesktop.org. Here is a simple launcher for a game development IDE called Twine, installed to the arrangement-wide /opt directory:

          
            
[Desktop Entry]
              Encoding=UTF-8
              Name=Twine
              GenericName=Twine
              Comment=Twine
              Exec=/opt/twine/Twine
              Icon=/usr/share/icons/oxygen/64x64/categories/applications-games.png
              Terminal=false
              Type=Application
              Categories=Development;IDE;
          
        

The tricky line is the Exec line. It must contain a valid command to start the application. Usually, it'south simply the full path to the affair you downloaded, but in some cases, it'southward something more circuitous. For example, a Coffee application might need to be launched every bit an argument to Java itself:

          
            
Exec=java -jar /path/to/foo.jar
          
        

Sometimes, a project includes a wrapper script that you can run so you don't accept to figure out the right control:

          
            
Exec=/opt/foo/foo-launcher.sh
          
        

In the Twine example, there'south no icon bundled with the download, so the example .desktop file assigns a generic gaming icon that shipped with the KDE desktop. You tin can use workarounds like that, but if you're more than artistic, you lot can merely create your own icon, or y'all can search the Internet for a proficient icon. As long as the Icon line points to a valid PNG or SVG file, your application will inherit the icon.

The example script also sets the application category primarily to Evolution, so in KDE, GNOME, and most other Application menus, Twine appears under the Development category.

To get this case to appear in an Application menu, place the twine.desktop file into i of two places:

• Place information technology in ~/.local/share/applications if you're storing the application in your own dwelling directory.
• Place it in /usr/share/applications if you're storing the application in /opt or another system-wide location and want it to appear in all your users' Application menus.

And now the application is installed as it needs to be and integrated with the rest of your system.

Compiling from source

Finally, there's the truly universal install format: source code. Compiling an application from source code is a great fashion to learn how applications are structured, how they interact with your arrangement, and how they tin can be customized. Information technology's by no means a push-button process, though. It requires a build environs, it usually involves installing dependency libraries and header files, and sometimes a niggling bit of debugging.

To learn more nearly compiling from source code, read my article on the topic.

Now you know

Some people think installing software is a magical process that just developers understand, or they think it "activates" an application, equally if the binary executable file isn't valid until it has been "installed." Hopefully, learning about the many different methods of installing has shown you that install is actually but shorthand for "copying files from ane place to the advisable places on your arrangement." There'southward goose egg mysterious about information technology. Equally long equally yous arroyo each install without expectations of how it's supposed to happen, and instead wait for what the programmer has prepare up equally the install process, it'south more often than not easy, even if it is different from what you're used to.

The important thing is that an installer is honest with you. If you come across an installer that attempts to install additional software without your consent (or maybe it asks for consent, but in a confusing or misleading way), or that attempts to run checks on your organization for no credible reason, so don't continue an install.

Practiced software is flexible, honest, and open up. And now y'all know how to get good software onto your computer.

Source: https://opensource.com/article/18/1/how-install-apps-linux

Posted by: lerouxbude1967.blogspot.com

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