Chapter 13. Installing Software

Linux distributions by default contain thousands of great software packages. Immediately after completing a basic install, you can surf the Net, write reports, create spreadsheets, view and manipulate images, and listen to music. Even with that plethora of software, you're still going to want to add new tools that you run across. Fortunately, Linux makes it easy to install new software onto your computer.

Conventional wisdom about Linux said you had to compile any software you wanted to install. You can still do that if you'd like (and many people do), but that's rarely necessary in this day and age. Instead, you can install any of thousands of packages easily and quickly using some simple tools.

You need to understand one important thing before proceeding, however. In the Linux world, software packages come in a variety of formats, with two in particular dominating: RPM and DEB (not surprisingly, those are the two we're going to cover in this chapter). RPM is used by distributions such as Red Hat (in fact, RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager), Fedora Core, SUSE, and other RPM-based distributions. DEB is used by Debian-based distributions such as Debian itself, K/Ubuntu, Linspire, Xandros, and many others. You should know how both work, but focus on the system that matches your distribution.

Tip

For a great breakdown of the various package management systems and the distributions that use them, see DistroWatch's "Linux DistributionsFacts and Figures: What Is Your Distribution's Package Management?," at http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=packagemanagement. Note that DEB leads the pack (note also that I'm biased because this is being written using K/Ubuntu, also known as "Debian Done Right").