My needs for a kubuntu Install

[Abdullah Ramazanoglu]

Ralph De Witt wrote:

> Hi all:
> I recently did a test of Kubuntu's live CD. I am impressed enough that I
> am considering installing kubuntu as my only operating system, but have
> some needs that I am having a hard time finding. I am new to Debian based
> linux and have little knowledge of were to find solutions/software and how
> to add it to the system. I need to be able to play wmv and wma files. But
> do not see how to add the need software to kubuntu,. I also would like to
> have real player, flash capabilities. I would also like to have a fully
> functional Open Office.org suite which needs Java. Can someone help me get
> these needed bits of software/code installed in a easy way that does not
> break the operating system. I currently use Kanotix and they provided some
> simple scripts to do the installs or had the software available. Thanks
> for your help.

Hi,

As apt is a repository based system (more or less like yum or urpmi) once
you point your system to the right/rich package repositories, all you need
to do is search in the subscribed repos and pick any package to install.
All the plumbing work is done by apt-get transparently, and what you wanted
to install just gets installed.

Default Kubuntu points to "main" (officially supported pkgs) and
"restricted" (a very tiny repo) but you also need to have it point to
"universe" (the bulk, not yet officially supported) and
"multiverse" (non-free) for the needs you mentioned. Here is more info on
these repos: http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ubuntu/components/

Also see the link below:
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/ApplicationHowTos
And particularly this one:
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RestrictedFormats

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list (with kate or nano) and add the words universe
multiverse to the end of "deb http://" lines. BTW you might want to comment
out all "deb-src http://" lines if you've no interest in sources. (This
would speed up repository index updates.)

There are also other repositories (see apt-get.org) but mixing them in
Kubuntu is strongly advised against. I just mention them for the record but
please don't try to use them if you're not desparate to have a certain pkg
not found anywhere else, or if you're not sure. Anyway, universe &
multiverse already collects most-all these distributed repositories.

You can work with packages both in command line or in GUI.
Default GUI package manager is kynaptic in Kubuntu is kynaptic, a subset of
the synaptic pkg manager, for the time being. In kynaptic you can search
for keywords in pkg names, or info fields, etc. You see which of them are
already installed, which are installed but there's a newer version in the
repos (in case you would like to upgrade), and which are not installed
(yet). You can select and install any of them.

Or you could install synaptic, which is currently more featureful than
kynaptic. If you do so, you can also edit /etc/apt/sources.list from within
synaptic dialogs. Basically both synaptic and kynaptic are GUI front ends
for apt utilities and both work the same way.

As for the command line:

To search for packages for keywords in their name or info/comments:
apt-cache search <Keyword>
apt-cache search <Keyword1> search <Keyword2> ...
(you might pipe the result into "less" for better viewing, as in "apt-cache
search movie | less")

To display info about a given package:
apt-cache show <PackageName>
(See "man apt-cache" for details)

To install/remove package(s):
apt-get install <PackageName>
apt-get remove <PackageName>
(See "man apt-get")

Best regards,
-- 
Abdullah Ramazanoglu
aramazan ÄT myrealbox D0T cöm