Software installation

Chapter 7

Software installation

• Numerous software options• Usually free

• Open source

• Several sources• Installation CD

• Websites• sourceforge.net

• freshmeat.net

• Software update

Software installation

• Installation options• Package system

• apt, rpm, dpkg, etc.

• depends on the distribution

• Download binary file

• Download source files, compile

• Easiest to use: package system• not all software will have package file for every

distribution

• same goes for binary files

• May need to compile the source to install• Similar to installing/upgrading kernel

Using RPM

• RPM (RedHat Package Manager)

• Automates install/upgrade/uninstall of software

• Keeps track of individual software files• Maintains dependencies (pre-requisite software)

• To install • rpm -ivh software-file.rpm

• Will complain about dependencies if not available

• To upgrade• rpm -Uvh software-file.rpm

• To remove• rpm -e software

• To query• rpm -q software

Using apt

• Similar to RPM in many ways

• Much more convenient• Software installs with less errors usually

• Automatically downloads and installs from repositories

• Keeps track of dependencies and installs required ones

• Repositories• sources of available software

• Internet

• CD

• Local

• Easiest to use apt with Synaptic front-end

Using apt

• Requires sudo previliges for most tasks

• To update the list of software from repositories• sudo apt-get update

• To upgrade all available software• sudo apt-get upgrade

• To install a software• sudo apt-get install software_name

• apt downloads and installs software and dependencies from repositories

• To search for software in repositories• sudo apt-cache search gedit

• To look for information on a particular software• sudo apt-cache show gedit

Using Synaptic

• GUI front-end to apt

• Easy to use and configure apt with Synaptic

• Install apt first with Synaptic

• Available under System>Administration

• Can edit and add repositories

Archive and Compression Utilities

• Crucial tools for software installation from source

• Archiving• Pack many files into a single file; easily transferred

• tar

• Compression• reduce the size of a file or set of files

• compress

• gzip

• Usually archive and compression used together• archive several files into one

• then compress the file

gzip

• Powerful compression utility

• Working• Compress a file, big_file

• save compressed file as big_file.gz

• remove original file

• Amount of compression depends on the kind of file• For eg., JPEG or PNG images are already

compressed

• To find out how much compression was done:

• gzip -l big_file.gz

• To get original file back:• gunzip big_file.gz

Using tar• tar is for archiving

• packing many files into a single file

• preserves ownerships, links, directory structure

• Options:

• To archive two files a.txt and b.txt into arch.tar:• tar cvf arch.tar a.txt b.txt

• To archive a directory temp into temp.tar• tar cvf temp.tar temp

c create a new archivex extract files from archivet list contents of archiver append to archivef filename of archivev verbose

Using tar

• To extract an archive mt.tar• tar xvf mt.tar

• To view the contents of the archive• tar tvf mt.tar

• Using with gzip• use the z option when compressing into a gzip file

• To archive & compress a.txt and b.txt into f.tar.gz• tar cvzf f.tar.gz a.txt b.txt

• To extract the above compressed archive• tar xvzf f.tar.gz

• To view the contents• tar tvzf f.tar.gz

Installing/Upgrading software the hard way

• rpm and apt packges of a software may not always be available

• Use the latest release of the software• Source

• Binary

• Available as compressed files

• Binary• Extract the files, which contain the necessary

programs

• Make sure the extracted program is in the PATH

• Source• Extract the files, compile and install the program

Installing from source

• Hardest way to install a program

• Necessary for installing latest version of the software

• May require root privileges

• Usual steps• Download the required tar compressed file

• Extract the files using tar

• Run it’s configuration program (usually ./configure)

• Run make for compiling

• Run make install (usually with sudo) for installation

• Cleaning (optional): make clean

• May run into problems!• shared libraries

• compiling problems