Basic of Software’s in Linux

Software in Linux is different than the usual software you find in windows like .exe setup file.
Software’s in Linux contains packages, individual unit, modules and libraries. When you install a
software, you need to install all those binary files and thousand of other files just to install an
application which is very complicated, this is where the package manager comes in. Every Linux distros
has its own package manager at your disposal to help.

The Standard Linux package format is RPM, which is used in RedHat, Fedora, Mandriva and SUSE.
Another popular package format is DEB, which is a Debian software package used in Debian Linux.
The Distributions based on Debian Linux are Ubuntu, Knoppix and Mepis. The Debian package file
normally has the extension as Application-name.deb

Note: To Install any Application in Linux, you need to become superuser.

Installing Application using Package in Ubuntu Manually

If you have already downloaded any software in the package format, i.e. .deb File which is present on
your local drive or Cd Drive then follow the below steps to install the package on your system.

Step 1: Open Terminal, Press Ctrl + Alt +T.

Step 2: Navigate to the directories were you have saved the .deb package on your system. For example,
here we have saved in the download folder of home directories.

Use “cd” command to navigate to directories and use “ls” command to list directories content.

type cd home/username/download

Step 3: To install any software or making any modification on Linux require admin rights, which is here
in Linux is SuperUser

type sudo su

Then type your Root password when prompted

Step 4: Here, we are installing Foxit Reader software package on the system, which is present in the
download folder of home directories. Using “ls” command will list directory content.

type sudo dpkg –i filename.deb

Foxit Reader Installed Successfully…

Here,

sudo – we prefix most command with sudo because it’s a command which specifies super user
permissions.

dpkg – dpkg is a tool to install, build, remove and to manage packages and –i specifies to install .deb
file.

Installing Application using Package in Ubuntu from Internet

If you have been using or learning Ubuntu for a while, you might have observed the command named
apt or apt-get. As said earlier, Every Linux distros has its own package management system (containing
software list). For Ubuntu, it’s Advanced Packaging Tool (APT). In Ubuntu, it has a list of repositories
of the software package which are available and act as a database of all package sources. Installing
software using APT is very easy, but you need the internet to download the files.

Searching a Software Package

To search for a software package, we use the below command. For example, here I am searching for
flash player and VLC Media Player.

type apt-cache search flashplayer

Installing a Software Package

Once you know the name of the package you want to install, type the below command to install that
package. Here, VLC in the below command is the package name.
Type apt-get install VLC

It may ask “Do you want to Continue”, type Y to Install.

Installing Application from tarball *.tar.gz files in Ubuntu

Other than normal package file like DEB and RPM, this types of files are also distributed. This type of
format is a well-know format in Linux/Unix because, this files contains the source code for the software.
The most Open-Source Software use tarball to distribute their software, tarball files have the extension
as .tar.gz, tgz or tar.bz2

Since it’s a source code, You will need 3 command to run this software on the system

1. ./configure
2. make
3. make install

Follow below steps to Install Software from tarball files.

Step 1: Uncompress tarball

Tar ball is a archive files which are usually compressed similar to ZIP files on windows or SIT files on
Mac. To uncompress or to extract the content of tar ball, use below command.

Type tar –xzvf filename.tar.gz

Note: If the extension of tar.bz2 then use “j” in place of “z” i.e. tar -xjvf

Here,

x – To extract the files.

z – use gzip to zip or unzip files, used when its .gz files.

v – verbose the files list which are extracted.

f – following is the archive file name.

j – use to decompress .bz2 files.

Step 2: Build and install software.

Since it is a source code, we need to compile, build and install it on the system. Okay, that look very
complicated but don’t worry it’s not going to be that hard. Navigate to the extracted folder using the cd
command. Once you are in the directory, run “./configure” command, which will verify whether your
system has all the necessary functionality and libraries which is required to compile the package. Once
that’s done run “make” command, which will compile the source file into executable binaries. And
finally, run “make install” which will install the package in the appropriate location.

./configure

make

make install

Note: Each tarball comes with an instruction or read me files, which mention some general information
about the software and the installation procedure. This files are usually named as Install or README
file.

Type vi Install