Install when apt-get doesn't work

[JonnyFrond]

Hi guys,

This may be more of a general Linux question, but how do you install software if you can't get apt-get install to work.

There are a couple of thinks I have wanted to try so the first thing I tried was that, then a message would come up

unable to locate file
So there is the tar.gz file. Looks promising, But that is all it is.

Please bear in mind I am newly converted from the land of the Mac where things just install for you whether you want them or not.

Kind Regards

Jonny

[jayd512]

Before we hit the other options, what command did you use? And what was the exact error message?

Aside from that, you can use aptitude. See here and here.
There is Synaptic.
And finally, dpkg.

Enjoy!

[Irithori]

ditto.

Going from doubleclick installs to source compiling might be a bit of a culture shock,
so best would be to investigate in apt-get, aptitude, etc as Jayd512 said.

[JonnyFrond]

Thanks for your input guys,

I was just trying to find things and see what was out there to play with. On this particular occasion, it was a version of Mah Jong solitare that I found. The one that comes with ubuntu is a lovely little brain trainer.

The message I got was
E: Unable to locate package ivory-1.0.1-Linux
E: Couldn't find andy package by regex 'ivory-1.0.1-Linux'

I can see part of the problem straight away, I was purely guessing as to what the file was called based on the Tar.gz file.

I just need to point out that I am running Mint 12 and the software manager has given up the ghost already and won't install anything, I don't see the point in fixing it when command line is probably quicker and more reliable and more satisfying to use too as a wannabe geek.

Now have aptitude, I think this will be a nice bridging stage for me. I guess the only question I have at the moment, though is how do I know how to use it to install things that I find.

I have awareness of
./configure
make
install

Though that can be tricky if the make file cannot be located. I assume that most people include a make file with their software but not always. I tried learning about make files but I think that will be a little way down the line as I have only been writing single function programs as yet. Most of the tasks that I have used C for are for reading from a text file and then performing a maths function on them. This can be done very simply in a single function.


Kind regards

Jonny

[jayd512]

What do you mean when you say

the software manager has given up the ghost already and won't install anything

?
Is it just failing on one program? Or all programs?

If just one, then you might find some joy by adding to your software repos.
This page explains how. It's geared toward Ubuntu, but the steps remain the same.

I have awareness of
./configure
make
install

Sometimes those work... sometimes not. Read through this page. There are references to installing several different types of software that may be of interest.

command line is probably quicker and more reliable and more satisfying to use

For package management... sometimes it's a real pain. Especially when you have to track down a bunch of dependencies first.
Not only that, but packages installed outside of the package manager will, oftentimes, not get updated when you perform a system update.

[alf55]

Most tarballs (*.tar, *.tgz, *.tbz, *.txz, *.tar.gz, *tar.bzip2, *.tar.xz) are source files that need to be compiled. Assuming that you have the needed development tools (which are normally available within package managment tools) are done by:

tar xvf tarball_file_name_goes_here
cd  directorycreatedfrom_above_cmd
./configure
make
sudo make install