This is Alan Pope with the twelfth screencast in the Ubuntu Month of Screencasts.
All the screencasts in the month can be downloaded for free from our website,
which is screencasts.ubuntu.com
In this screencast we are going to look at installing and removing applications
and also managing our sources.
So the first thing we are going to look at is software sources
and I'm using version 7.04 for this screencast.
Under System -> Administration -> Software Sources,
is an application which can show us and allow us to maintain
the software sources that our local Ubuntu system is aware of,
this is where we can download software from.
Unlike other platforms, most of our software in Ubuntu
can be obtained from one central location.
The central location is actually grouped into a number of sections
main, universe, restricted and multiverse,
depending upon certain restrictions
and the supportability of the software within those repositories
We can switch on and switch off these little tick boxes in software sources.
and what this does is make available to us the software in those repositories
or not if we turn the tick box off.
So at the top we have the main repository, which is where the core applications reside
and these applications are supported by Canonical.
Then we have the universe, restricted and multiverse repositories,
which contain further applications.
There are many applications in the universe repository for example.
We can also tick this box to allow us to download the source code for the applications
and we can choose where the server is located, that we want to download from,
makes sense to choose the nearest one to us.
We can also make CD-ROMs known to the system,
so we can apply packages from repositories that reside on CD.
And we can do that with this Add CD-ROM button,
under the third party software tab.
We can also add third party repositories, we'll look at that later.
As well as new software there are updates,
which we get notified with the little orange icon in the corner of the screen.
So we have a number of repositories here
and updates that can be downloaded.
And we'll look at updates in another screencast.
When I close this box,
if I have made any changes in either the updates
or the Ubuntu software tab or added any third party repositories,
we get the dialog box asking us to update.
And this is what we call and update,
it goes to find out what's in those repositories.
So now that I have my software sources configured,
I'm ready to start adding software.
There's two main ways to install software, using the menu.
Under the Applications menu there is Add/Remove...
This is what I will show you in just a moment.
And there is a subset of all the applications we can install, within there.
If you look under System -> Administration, there's the Synaptic Package Manager,
which has the full list of all the software we could install,
that's known in the repositories.
We'll come back to that in just a minute.
So starting with Add/Remove Applications.
Here you can see that it wants to go and get a list of applications
from the repository, again.
So unlike other platforms where we have to go and find applications on websites,
with the Add/Remove Applications and Synaptic,
the applications kind of come to us, as it were.
Here you can see the applications are grouped or categorized
So if we just want to install games, we click Games
and you can see here a list of games.
If we're a programmer and we want to install developer tools,
we hit Programming,
and so on.
You can see that at the top right-hand corner of the window,
there is a further selection to show different categories of applications,
whether they are supported by Ubuntu
or whether they are third party applications
or whether they are already installed.
You can see here graphical applications that are already installed
and you can indeed see where they are on the menu.
And here are some games that are already installed.
If we choose all available applications or all open source applications,
it shows us different sets of the applications available,
gives us a different view of the applications available.
Choosing "Third party applications" and choosing the category "All",
you can see there are some third party products here.
For example the popular Opera web browser,
we could install through this Add/Remove Applications.
As you can see there are quite a few applications that we can install
and this isn't even the full list.
So let's do a search for an application.
In the box at the top of the window we can type in the name
or part of a name or part of the description of an application.
I happen to know there is a desktop publishing package called Scribus,
which I might want to install.
And by typing scribus in, it shows us two versions of Scribus.
One is the development branch,
which will be a newer possibly unstable version of Scribus
and the other one is the stable version of Scribus,
which we might prefer to install.
As I said you can search on the name of the application
or you can search on the description.
If I hit the little tick next to the application,
it ticks that and flags it to be installed.
and if I click Apply, it will then install that application.
I can show you that we can do a search in a different way.
If I search for publish or publishing,
to look for a desktop publishing application.
there's another one that shows up.
So if I didn't know the name of the application,
I could search for a description or a descriptive word.
Or I could use the categories on the left-hand side to filter.
You can tick multiple applications.
Now some applications reside in a repository for restricted software
and you get a warning whenever you're installing software
from this restricted or multiverse repository
and you can choose whether you want to install or not.
If you cancel then the box gets unticked.
If you choose to install then it will allow you to install that package.
So if I click Apply it's going to install Scribus and Xara Xtreme,
these two applications.
It gives me a summary first of all, to show me what it's going to do.
And I hit Apply.
It now downloads the package
and any dependencies that are required by those packages,
which is a very useful feature.
And then starts installing all of the packages.
And it installs them in the right order to make sure dependencies are fulfilled
before the applications are installed.
There, done.
When I hit the details tab, you can see information
about the applications that have been installed.
There's Xara and Scribus at the very bottom of that window.
Most people don't view that, so we'll just hit closed.
And when we do that we get a summary of
where the applications have been installed on the menu.
So you can see here we'll find Xara Xtreme and Scribus
under Applications -> Graphics.
and sure enough, there's Scribus and there's Xara Xtreme.
If we now close the Add/Remove Applications.
We can test the applications we have just installed.
Under Applications -> Graphics and then if I choose Scribus,
there we go, it's installed successfully.
Now when I run Xara Xtreme, it pops up a warning.
because there's actually something else that Xara's detected that we need,
it's called ImageMagick and it says we need that
otherwise certain features of Xara won't work.
And we need to use are package management tool to install that ImageMagick
and we'll come back to that in a minute.
So those two programs have installed successfully.
Now let's take a look at using the Synaptic Package Manager,
to install packages.
The Synaptic Package Manager has a much larger list of applications.
You can think of it as being the Add/Remove Applications, but in expert mode.
So let's look for the program that Xara wanted.
If we look in Add/Remove Applications for ImageMagick,
which was required by Xara for some enhanced features,
it doesn't show up.
An application that mentions ImageMagick shows up,
but ImageMagick itself doesn't.
So let's go and have a look in Synaptic Package Manager,
under System -> Administration.
Now Synaptic Package Manager also has a way of categorizing applications,
on the left-hand side and grouping them together.
You can see it also mentions the repository names.
So this is a bit more expert mode, it's mentioning repository names
that the Add/Remove Applications doesn't show you.
Down the bottom of the screen it says there are ~21,000 packages,
in the bottom left-hand corner.
And if I want to search in those 21,000 for ImageMagick,
I click the search button at the top of the screen
and just type in the package that I'm looking for.
Now there are lots of packages that mention ImageMagick,
but ImageMagick itself is listed.
And you can see down the bottom of the screen, if I lift this up,
you can see a description of what ImageMagick is.
It's an image manipulation program, suite of programs in fact.
So if I want to install this, I tick the little box and mark it for installation.
So I have now got one package marked to install
and if I want to apply that change, I hit the Apply button.
I can of course tick other applications as well.
A summary box appears.
Now there are in fact some updates waiting on my system
and there are 5 packages to be updated,
but I am going to ignore those for now.
and just install the one new package, ImageMagick.
So I click Apply and it will download ImageMagick,
I can of course just choose to download it
and not actually install it right now
If I was on dial-up and I just wanted to download the package, I could do that
and then apply it later on, when I've hung up the phone.
Luckily I have a fast Internet connection, so it downloads and install very quickly.
And you can see there, it's installed ImageMagick successfully.
If we now close that
and do a search for ImageMagick again.
You should now see that there is a little green mark next to it
showing that it is installed.
And you can see we have further options to re-install,
remove or completely remove that package.
We'll look at the removal options in a bit more detail later on.
But the difference between remove and complete remove is really,
"remove" removes the application,
"complete remove" will remove the application and also any configuration files
that the application has associated with it.
Neither of those options will remove any data,
so if you've created any images with this program for example,
those images won't be removed,
it's only the application that gets removed by the package manager
and configuration files as well.
So now that we've installed the pre-requisite for Xara,
let's go back and re-run Xara Xtreme.
and make sure that warning dialog doesn't appear any more.
There we go, it's gone away.
So now we've added the required bits for that to work.
So now let's look at another way to install applications
by adding repositories.
Now we've already looked at Software Sources and we've seen the repositories
that are defined by default.
And if we go and search for a particular application,
it will only search within those repositories.
So I'm looking for a program called Miro,
and it can't find Miro in Add/Remove,
and the reason for that is that Miro isn't in the Feisty,
Ubuntu Feisty 7.04, repository.
So if we go to Synaptic Package Manager and have a look there as well,
just to make double sure, and search for Miro.
Again Miro isn't listed in the list of applications,
because it's not in the repositories, any of the repositories,
that we have listed in the Software Sources on our system.
So let's go to the website for this product.
Miro is a media player application.
Actually it's a bit more than that, but that's enough for now.
It's a video player and if I go to getmiro.com,
which you can easily find if you just google Miro.
It's the first website on the list,
I'll just show you that.
So there we go the first hit when you search for Miro is getmiro.com
and there's an option to download the Linux version of Miro.
So let's say I'm interested in downloading this software that isn't in the repository
Down here there are instructions for Linux
and some instructions specifically for Ubuntu.
And if we click the download link, there's some pretty comprehensive instructions
on how you might go about installing Miro.
Now to install Miro I'll summarize what those instructions say.
It basically says we need to add an extra repository to our system
and then Miro should show up in our package manager.
It tells us what to do right there.
In fact the screenshots further down are a little bit out of date.
They show an older version of Ubuntu.
So if we go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources.
It shows a slightly different way to get there, but it's much the same.
We then go to the third party software tab
and we want to add this third party repository.
We get asked for the APT line
and the line should start with the letters deb
and we start copying here deb, all the way to the end of that line.
And I'll copy that and paste it into here
and then click Add Source.
There we go, we've added a third party repository.
Now you have to be a bit careful here, because that repository could contain any software,
it could contain software that conflicts with existing software on your system
So obviously, you have to weigh up the pros and cons of adding this extra repository.
It's your system and you don't really want to damage it with third party repositories.
It's also possible that this can cause problems during upgrades,
and we'll see later on, in fact you will have seen in the previous screencast,
that during an upgrade these repositories get disabled some times.
So now that we've added the repository,
let's look at how we add the software, that we've added from that repository.
So here are the instructions and a bit further down it says
install Miro using your package manager.
Now the package manager we know is Synaptic
So we could go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager,
Remember we searched for Miro earlier and couldn't find it.
Now if we search for Miro, my system is aware of that extra repository.
And Miro is now in the list, along with a dependency Miro-data.
So if I highlight Miro, you can see from the description,
that's the application that I want to install.
Miro-data is some supplemental stuff that goes with it.
If I tick the box and choose mark for installation,
then it gives me a warning that this application
is coming from this third party repository.
And (you know) there could be some nefarious or dodgy
packages on that repository.
So we have to be a little bit careful about this.
Do we really want to apply these applications.
Now if we go back to our Software Sources,
you can see under the authentication tab,
there are trusted software providers.
And the trusted software providers are software providers who
cryptographically sign their packages.
Now Miro don't cryptographically sign their packages,
there's nowhere on this page for me to add their key to my system.
So that I can decrypt or validate that their packages are signed.
So there's not much I can do about this other than either choose to accept or not,
these packages
So I'll choose to accept them
and you'll notice now we have got Miro and the dependency Miro-data
I only choose Miro, but Miro-data was pulled in as a dependency of Miro.
And if I right-click I can choose to unmark it
or I can have a look at the properties of that application.
And you can see here it's got some information about further dependencies.
So it's not just Miro and Miro-data that I'm installing,
there will be other dependencies as well.
And there are further tabs here,
we will come back to this install files in just a minute.
This is useful if you want to see where the application was installed,
what files were put on to your system.
It tells you the version number and then there's the short description,
which is the same as you see in the main screen of Synaptic.
There's also an email address for the maintainer there,
so you can contact that person.
Now if I hit Apply, it's going to again give me the reminder
that some of these packages could not be authenticated,
they are not cryptographically signed.
And there's 16 new packages that will be installed.
So it downloads those 16 packages and then starts installing them,
Now some of those packages will be coming from the third party repository,
many of them will come from the standard Ubuntu repositories.
So Miro uses some code that's in the standard repository,
some libraries for example.
Now that's installed we can close and
if we search again for Miro,
we should find that it's got the little green mark next to it,
to show that it's installed.
And if we right-click you can see again we can re-install or remove
and now if we look at the properties, you can see under installed files,
all the files that have been installed by this one package.
This doesn't include all of the files that got installed by all of the dependencies,
just by this package.
So let's just test to see if Miro works.
We should find it under Applications -> Sound & Video,
there it is, Miro.
That looks good.
Miro is quite a funky media player, allows you to download TV programs
and podcasts and the like and watch them within this window or full screen on your PC.
There's a load of groups on the left-hand side,
it's quite a neat application.
So that works.
Finally we will look at manually installing packages.
This is the last way of installing packages that I am going to show.
Now a word of warning about manually installing packages.
What we will be doing is visiting a website,
downloading some deb packages and installing them manually.
We won't be getting them from a repository
and so there will be no way for those packages to get updated.
So if there are bugs or security holes in those applications,
they won't get updated in the same way that all our standard packages
will be updated from the repository.
So you have to be a little bit careful when doing this.
So from getdeb.net, which is a website where many applications
such as Second Life and various other popular applications
get packaged up as .debs
and a .deb is the package format that Ubuntu uses.
The deb comes from Debian, which Ubuntu is based on.
And you can see here we've got Gaim Instant Messenger,
Now Gaim recently changed it's name to Pidgin
and getdeb have Pidgin available for download.
So what we could do is use that as an example program to download.
Now I can follow the instructions here
and it basically shows me there are two file to download,
Pidgin and Pidgin-data.
So if I just click on Pidgin it gets a .deb file.
and Firefox will give me the option of loading it with gdebi,
which is the package installer
or alternatively I can save it to disk.
Now I need both of these files so I'm going to save them to disk.
That's Pidgin done and it saves it on to my desktop.
I'll now click on Pidgin-data and save that one to disk as well,
that's also a .deb.
Click Ok and I should now have two files on my desktop.
There we go, Pidgin and Pidgin-data.
Now what I am going to do is just highlight them both
and press enter to open gdebi, the package installer.
Now you'll notice here is opens a separate window
for each of the packages I want to install.
I did this so that you can see that Pidgin-data says all dependencies satisfied
that can now be installed.
But PIdgin itself has a dependency not satisfied yet.
it requires Pidgin-data to be installed first.
So I'll install Pidgin-data first.
Gdebi will ask me for my password,
which is normal for any application that make a system wide change,
to your Ubuntu environment.
It now installs Pidgin-data.
Done.
So now I can close the package manager
and if I close this one and again double-click on Pidgin.
You can see now it doesn't complain the Pidgin-data is not installed,
but it does say there is another dependency that's required,
now this file will be in the repository.
The fact that it's not complaining, it's not giving me a red light when I install,
it will prompt me for my password,
then go and get the necessary packages that are missing,
from the repository.
It couldn't get Pidgin from the repository or Pidgin-data,
because they don't exist in the 7.04 Feisty repository.
There we go, now Pidgin is installed.
I can get rid of those .deb files,
because I don't need them any more, now the application is installed.
And you will find it under Applications -> Internet.
So there we go, there's our Pidgin Internet Messenger.
And that seems to work okay.
I'm not going to use it right now.
You can see that it all seems to be functioning as expected.
I'll just close that.
And that's installing a package manually.
Finally we are going to look at removing packages.
This is pretty straight forward, for removing software that's been installed
either via Add/Remove or via Synaptic
or indeed via gdebi.
I'm going to remove Pidgin Internet Messenger
because I'm not actually going to use it on this system.
So if I go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager,
which is where we have installed programs previously,
and I search for pidgin.
Even though Pidgin wasn't installed from a repository,
Synaptic knows about it because it is installed on my system.
Now we have the option here to remove the application
or completely remove.
Completely remove is a more comprehensive remove,
it removes configuration files and other bits and bobs as well.
I'll remove Pidgin and Pidgin-data
and I'm also going to search for the dependency that they installed.
Now you'll notice this is quite a manual process
and this is partly because we've installed these programs manually.
There are ways in which we can remove multiple packages in one go
I'm just showing you an easy way to remove individual packages,
with Synaptic Package Manager.
So you can see here I would gain another one MB
if I remove this package, because it tells me when I click on it the properties,
the size of the package.
So now I've tagged three packages to be removed.
I hit Apply
and it says here these three packages will be removed.
And I will free up 26MB of disk space.
When I hit Apply it removes those packages.
Done.
So I've removed pretty much all trace of those three packages now.
and of course I could go on to remove all the other packages
that I've installed so far in this screencast.
So in summary, we can install applications direct from the repository,
We can install applications either via Add/Remove or Synaptic.
We can also add additional repositories
and then install software from those repositories,
slightly dangerous, because we don't necessarily know what's in those repositories.
and we don't have control over them.
And finally we can install debs, that we can download off the Internet.
I hope that's been useful.
You can find all of our screencasts on our website,
screencasts.ubuntu.com