Re: [LUG] quitting a job

["Steven Coté" <steven.cote@xxxxxxxxx>]

There are so many programs in the repositories though I don't see how I can
know if what I want is there?...

Most packages have pretty good descriptions attached to them, so I find if I don't know the name of a package I'm looking for, I can just use synaptic to search for task related key-words (such as 'bittorrent' or 'music player' or some such thing). This will usually give me a pretty good list of options to pick from.

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 ?....

I think you'll be surprised how rarely this actually happens, especially on debian based distros (like Ubuntu). In the rare circumstance where there's something you really need and it's not available via apt-get, then downloading the source and doing a "configure;make;make install" is really the only option you have left. This is something you should always avoid though, because this program now exists outside of your packaging system. This means you won't receive automatic security updates and bug fixes which could leave your system vulnerable.

Just out of curiosity, is there a particular package that you do need that isn't in the repository, or are you just speculating?
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