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On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 16:07:21 +0000 (UTC), wrote: > OK, I think I'm seeing the diferances to Windows. You can see how the bad > behaviour and habbits that I have developed from using Windows are > affecting > my ability to use Linux though. What about software that isn't in the > Linux > repositories that I cannot do with out ?.... > Jon More often than not there is an alternative in Linux. A pretty good list of software can be found here: http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software For software that isn't in your repository, but is available under Linux, there are a number of ways of installing it. If your software developer has a .deb or .rpm file, then you can attempt to install it manually: $ sudo dpkg -i file.deb $ sudo rpm -i file.rpm (I think... it's been a while). You may find that doing so prompts you for software that's missing (neither dpkg nor rpm do dependency checking... that's the job of apt and yum/urpmi). So use "apt-cache search" or "yum search" for the missing software, then install with "apt-get install xxx" or "yum install xxxx". Then try your dpkg/rpm command from above again. You may find that your developer hasn't produced debs/rpms, and who can blame them? There are so many distributions out there, who do you choose to support? By releasing the source code, others can (if they choose) create debs/rpms. And exactly this happens. There are plenty of "repositories" around that house software all packaged up nicely. For example, debian-multimedia.org has set up a repository of "extra" software for Debian-based systems. You need only add the relevant lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file and they'll be available to install in the "normal" way. It's been quite a while since I used RPM based systems, but I recall "penguin liberation front" being quite popular for Mandrake systems. Last port of call, if you are not familiar with doing so, is to install from the source code directly. Again, however, there are often 2 options. Downloading a .tar.gz file or getting it from CVS/SVN. Either way there is almost always a README file and quite often an INSTALL file. You should read these. The *general* way of installing software from source is as follows: $ ./configure (wait for a while) $ make (wait for a while) $ sudo make install (wait for a while) Doing this can cause problems. If you are building *libraries*, then your package manager (apt or yum) will not know about these nice, shiny new library versions. I think I'll leave it at that for now. Hope this clears a few things up. Grant. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html