Installing software in user friendly way

[Lee Braiden]

On Tuesday 12 Jul 2005 12:21, Renato Pedroso Henriques wrote:
> I am used to download an installer of any kind, say the opera browser for
> instance.  Double click on it and that is it. The installer does it. In the
> linux world where things are new to me, all I get is a targzip package with
> everything inside. How do I install anything at all?

That's a terrible way to manage software!  Ubuntu (and originally debian, on 
which it is based) do things much more sensibly.  Windows update and Mac OS 
also TRY to do this, but fail, because of their commercial priorities.

In ubuntu, you have a single place to find all the software you need: the 
package management system.  The synaptic program gives you easy access to 
that, allowing you to choose whatever software you want on your system.

Since you're telling the Ubuntu package system what software you want, and the 
system knows a lot about this software, it manages it for you: it can keep it 
up-to-date and bug free for you, fix security issues, and warn you if other 
software you want to install conflicts with it.  If it does, it'll give you 
the choice of which to keep.

Learn about this system, and become familiar with synaptic; it's one of the 
best reasons to run a debian-based OS, and the main reason I haven't stuck 
with anything else for years now :)

-- 
Lee Braiden
http://www.DigitalUnleashed.com
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