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Have fun

Installing slackware packages

Slackware packages are usually .tgz files containing pre-built binaries. To install software in slackware you will need to find and download the .tgz package manually beforehand. If you are looking for a slackware package for a piece of software and have not found it yet, search Linux Packages for it.

Ok, once we have our package, lets install it. To install slackware packages, ensure you are the root user using the su command:

Now run the following command to install the package:
Code:
installpkg packagename.tgz

Uninstalling a package is also quite simple:
Code:
removepkg packagename

Also worth noting about slackware packages, is a utility called pkgtool which will allow you to install, remove and list packages on your system. To use pkgtool, run:
Code:
pkgtool
and follow onscreen prompts.

Lastly, if you are having trouble locating a slackware package, but have been able to find a equivilent RPM, you can "convert" that RPM to a slackware package which you can use with the installpkg and removepkg commands. To convert your RPM to .tgz, use the command:
Code:
rpm2tgz packagename.rpm

Installing with fedora / yum

Most of the same commands used with Debian's apt-get are used with yum, such as

yum install
yum remove
yum update

Installing Binary Files and Scripts (.BIN/.SH)

For BIN files:

1. Make sure the file is set to "executable" by running this command:
Code:
chmod +x filename.bin

2. Run the file like this:
Code:
./filename.bin

NOTE: If the installer requires access to directories outside of your /home/ directory, you may need to log in as root before you can execute these commands successfully. That can be accomplished with the su command, followed by your root (Administrator) password. Ubuntu users will use sudo and their regular user password instead.

For .SH files:

1. Make sure the file is executable by following Step 1 above.
2. Run the file either with the same command as the previous Step 2, or like this:
Code:
sh filename.sh

Direct installation using apt-get

APT (Advance Packaging Tool) is a wonderful package management system. It consists of different tools, which names usually begins with "apt-" : apt-get, apt-cache, apt-cdrom, etc. Unlike RPM, which equivalent in a Debian system would probably be DPKG, apt-get handles dependencies resolution and takes care of downloading the software for you (much like YUM in a Red Hat system).

Aptitude is a terminal-based apt frontend with a number of useful features, including: a mutt-like syntax for matching packages in a flexible manner, dselect-like persistence of user actions, the ability to retrieve and display the Debian changelog of most packages, and a command-line mode similar to that of apt-get. One should use aptitude to install meta-packages because aptitude keeps log of all packages that are part of meta-package. Its easy to remove/un-install meta-package if one go with aptitude.

One must have root privileges to execute apt-get or aptitude commands. Execute 'su' or add prefix 'sudo' to gain root privileges.

Installating a binary package is done in one single step :
Code:
apt-get install package //Exact package name will be required

Uninstalling a package is done like this :
Code:
apt-get remove package

Or if you wish to remove the package along with all of its configuration files (essentially doing a clean uninstall):
Code:
apt-get remove --purge package

Note: A word of caution : apt-get handles dependencies in a very strict manner. If you try to uninstall a piece of software that other pieces of software depends on, apt-get will also want to uninstall them (not before warning you about the situation).

There are many other features of apt command, it comes with a built in tool package for building, compiling e.t.c.Just have a look. Once the user has a sources.list adapted to his/her needs, the local list of packages needs to be updated :
Code:
apt-get update

Only then can the repositories be browsed with apt-cache.
To search a package from its text description :
Code:
apt-cache search something

To know more about a package and its description (dependencies, functionnalities, maintainer's identity, etc.) :
Code:
apt-cache show package

Another neat feature of apt-get : it allows to build and install a source package. Minimally, two steps are needed in order to do that. First install the package dependencies :
Code:
apt-get build-dep package

Secondly tell apt-get to build and install the package itself :
Code:
apt-get source -b package

Installing RPM's using the Redhat Package Manager

Redhat RPM's offer a flexible and easy method to install new software. Software installed from an RPM package differs from compiling from source in a few ways, but the most important one of all is the software is already compiled for you. Essentially all you are doing is extracting the pre-built binaries and copying them to their pre-selected destination. RPM's are files that have a ".rpm" extention. The good point about RPM's is installation of new software, and maintaining the software currently installed is much easier than doing so for individual packages compiled from source. The downside to RPM's is that you don't have as much choice about where software is installed on your system, how it is compiled, and how it is configured.

If rpm is not pre-installed u can easily do it.
Open terminal.
Type sudo apt-get install rpm.

Using the RPM system is fairly straight forward. To install a package, you can use the following command:

rpm -i filename.rpm

When using rpm, you must be logged in as the root user. The "-i" flag in the above command means "install".

Un installing a package is just as easy:

rpm -e package

The "-e" switch used here means "erase" (un install).
Note that is different from used when installing.

For example, if you are installing an application called "mysoftware", you may use a command like "rpm -i mysoftware-1.0.2-i386.rpm" to install "mysoftware", when removing we dont follow the filename for installation, but rather the name of the software itself.

For further uses of RPM, please use rpm website, which has some fairly useful information.


If you need to find & download the RPM file for a piece of software, I recommend using RPM Find and RPM Pbone Search. Note that not all applications are available as RPM's, in these cases you will need to compile the software from source. (see previous blog).

Compiling and Installing software from source

Typically applications you must compile from source as a ".tar.gz", ".tar.bz2", or ".zip" file.

You'll probably want to operate from inside your home directory. If your user is (for example) username, your home directory will be /home/username/. For the rest of this section we will assume you have downloaded your zip file to /home/username/src. If you do not have a src directory, you can create it with the following "mkdir" (make directory) command:

mkdir /home/username/src/
So, we have our source package in /home/username/src/.

Change to the /home/username/src/ directory with the "cd" (change directory) command like so:

cd /home/username/src/

Use the "ls" (list directory contents) command, to see the file is present:

ls

We now need to unzip the zipped file, this is done differently depending on the file extension.

for files ending in .tar.gz, use:

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz
(replacing with the name of the file).

for files ending in .tar.bz2, use:

tar -jxvf filename.tar.bz2

for files ending in .zip, use:

unzip filename.zip

You should now have a new directory, containing all of the source files. To confirm it exists, and to get its name, use the "ls" command again.

we now need to go into the new directory, so use the cd command:

cd

This is where things will differ. Some packages will have an INSTALL or README file which will contain installation instructions. use "ls" to see if the software has an install or readme file. If it does have one, you can use the "more" command to read it, like so:

more INSTALL

Generally, the final 3 stages are as follows:
- Configure the installation
- Compile the software
- Install the binaries

The pre-installation configuration is done by executing ./configure:

./configure

This will perform some requirements testing on your system, and create a "Makefile" which will explain to the "make" utility how the software should be compiled. If you receive any error messages during this stage, you may wish to search the linux forums to see if they have been found and resolved by someone else already, if not, feel free to send a mail to me- Please include all of the output including any error messages, and some details about your system - what distro you are using, what are you trying to install etc etc


The next stage is to compile the software, this is done using "make". When you run "make" it will read the instructions in the Makefile and build the application binaries.

make

The final stage is to install these binaries, ie, copy them to a more permanent location. Typically only the "root" user can do this, so you will need to swich to the root user with the su command:

Once you are root, install the binaries using the "make" command, followed by "install", like so:

make install

That is it! Check the user documentation of the software you installed for details of how to run the application.