Hello everyone and welcome to my second Linux blog, in this occasion we will be learning how to install and remove applications as well as updating your whole system. Installing Software I think that there is no need for explanation here, installing applications is one of the most important things that you need to know in order to understand your operating system and be able to get the full potential out of it. Of course, there are a lot of good applications installed by default in Ubuntu, but who in his right mind does not use applications other than the default ones? Here are three methods used to install applications on Ubuntu: Method 1: Ubuntu Software center Created by the Ubuntu developers, the Ubuntu software center was created in order to blend in with the entire ecosystem and providing an easy to use way to get applications. If you have a newly installed install of Ubuntu, the software center icon should be in the dock looking bar located at the left of your screen. Click it and it should open the software center. In the search bar located at the top right of the app you can type a type of app or a name of an app to search for it. When you search for an app, you will see results and if you click one of the results a screen like the one shown in the left will show up giving you the name of the app, the ratings, description, screenshot and also comments about the app itself. There are also some rare occasions where you can add add-on to the application. If you click the install button, a small little window will appear asking you for your password. Like I said before, Linux focuses on security, this is why even for installing, removing an app or even updating you are required to provide your password. After the application is done installing, you will see a shortcut of it be added to the bar at the left of the screen. Method 2: Terminal (apt-get install) Here is where things get interesting, the terminal. Although it might seem scary, it is not, the terminal will be your friend and if you know how to use it wisely, you will have a very pleasant experience. In order to open the terminal, you can either tap the windows key (on windows keyboards) and then type "Terminal" and press enter, or you can press CRTL + ALT + T and it should open up. Next we want to run the command "sudo apt-get install [name of the app]" (where [Name of the app] will be the name of the application that we want to install) In my case, I wanted to install the application "chromium-browser" which a Linux version of the web browser Google Chrome, so the command will be "sudo apt-get install chromium-browser. When installing through the terminal, you need to know the name of the application that you want to install, because some might contain dashes like the example below, and some will be only one word. Next it will ask you for your password. Even though you will not see any characters displayed, it will be recording your keystrokes. Type your password correctly and then press enter. It takes a little bit to get used to it. The reason behind having to put our password is because we are running the command with the "sudo" command at the beginning of the line which makes it run as the super user (or as the administrator for Windows users). When we send the command, the system will tell us the packages that will be downloaded and will ask us if we really want to install them, you can either type "y" to accept them and then press enter or you can just press the enter key. If you do not want to accept you can just press the "n" key and then enter. After the process going on in the command line stops, your application will be installed and you can look for it in the dash by pressing the windows key in your keyboard and typing the name of the application. Method 3: .Deb file The third method here of installing apps might remind you a little bit to windows, the .deb package. These type of packages are binary packages that hold important information for the application to be installed. This type of packages is used only for Debian based distributions, such as Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary and others. If you want to learn more about .deb packages here its some information for you. [Click Here]. There are also other type of files similar to .deb, such as RPM packages which are used in most other distributions, such as Fedora, Opensuse, and Pclinuxos. In this example, I will be downloading Skype from their web page and I have selected the one for Ubuntu and then it will just automatically download. Some web pages also can, instead of providing .deb packages, provide ppas or Debian repositories directly, that it just a little bit more complicated to explain and you will encounter it a lot online if you are following tutorials related to Ubuntu, don't worry I will cover it in a future post. When we have downloaded the .Deb package, it should be in located in our downloads folder. Look for it and double click it. When you double click it, it will take a little bit of time and then will open the Ubuntu software center. Where some information about the app will be provided to you and other simple things like in method one. After it is open, just click on install and then type your password, same as in the method number one. Eventually I will make another tutorial for installing deb packages but with an application called "gdebi" which is only used for installing deb packages, it is a very solid application and performs very fast this task. Removing Software Like installing applications, removing them is also a very important process, for instance to save up space in your disk or remove conflicting applications, or even because you found a better application that does the same job. Here I will be showing three different methods to remove applications installed in your system: Method 1: The dash The first method that we will be learning is very easy, just go on the dash by pressing the windows key on your keyboard, look for the app that you want to uninstall and then right click the app, a menu like the one shown in the image below will show up, there will be some description provided as well as two buttons, uninstall and launch, just press uninstall in order to uninstall the application. Method 2: Using Ubuntu Software Center You can also use the Ubuntu Software center in order to uninstall applications as well. You can either look for the application on the search bar, click it and then click uninstall or like in the case shown at the left, you can click the "Installed" tab, here you can see all the applications that you have installed in your system organized in sub-menus depending on the function of the application itself. When you click one of the sub-menus you can see the applications inside of them and when you click one of those applications you can see two buttons as before, one that says "More information" and another one that says "Remove". To uninstall any application there you you just press that remove button. Method 3: Terminal (apt-get remove) Removing applications with the terminal is almost the same thing as installing them, instead of using "sudo apt-get install" we use "sudo apt-get remove" followed by the name of the application. Updating your system Updating your system and your applications is one of the most important things that you are supposed to know when you are using Linux, this is because it will keep your system fresh, secured and with the latest features. Here are three ways in which you can update your system on Ubuntu: Method 1: Using the "Software Updater" Ubuntu has an application called the "Software updater" which comes by default with the distribution that allow us to update your system. In order to find the software updater, press the Windows key in your keyboard and type "update", the first application that comes up will be the software updater, press enter and it will open up. After we open the app, it will start looking for updates, it can take some time depending on the amount of applications that you have installed or the repositories that you have added in your system. When it is done looking for updates it will show a small window like the one at the left showing the amount of updates that are required, as well as the size of the download. Click install and it should update your system. Method 2: Using the terminal (apt-get upgrade) The second method that we will be using is the terminal. In order to update your system through the terminal you must type "sudo apt-get upgrade" which will pull down all the updates and install them. We must not confuse this command with "apt-get update" which is used to update the list of repositories, which will be soon touching in a future post. We do not need to type anything after the "upgrade" word because we are updating the entire system, not just an application. Congratulations, you have learned how to install, remove applications as well as update them. Now you can go on and install and test applications out there! in my next post I will be talking about ppas as a way to add applications that are not included in the repositories list of the distribution. If you have any other alternative ways of doing any of these processes shown above, do not hesitate to contact me and maybe I will update the post with your suggestion.
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Angel MercedesElectrical Engineering student and lover of all things Open Source, 3D Printing, Electronics and Linux. Categories
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May 2017
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