2004.07_Software Setup-How to Add Software to Your System.pdf

Adding Software Intro

COVER STORY

Adding Software

Today the initial installation of Linux can be done with just three clicks on “OK”, the graphical user-interface looks nice

and is intuitive, and the number of supported devices is steadily increasing. However, there is one thing that can still be

a problem: installing additional software. BY HANS-GEORG EßER

computer after the initial installation

is pretty simple: you start the package

management tool that comes with your

respective distribution, select the desired

programs and click on OK – the tool han-

dles the rest automatically. Well, at least

that is the theory.

For Suse and Debian Linux we are

going to talk about two popular tools:

YaST, well-known to all Suse users; start-

ing on page 20, we show how to use the

text-mode variant – and thus handle

more than just installing programs. With

Aptitude, Debian users have an interface

for the package administration tool APT:

this program runs in text mode, as well,

so that you can also use it for remote

maintenance, among other things. The

Aptitude tutorial article starts on page

24.

Three-Step

Many programs are not available in

either RPM or Debian package format.

This applies especially to the brand new

versions of the latest software. If you fol-

low the new release of Linux software

on http://www.freshmeat.net/ , you

will find ready-to-use packages only

in rare cases. Instead, they are source

code in either tar.gz or tar.bz2 format.

In order to be able to do anything

with these you need the development

packages, such as the c-compiler

gcc , the make tool and a list of

libraries, with all of the header

files that go with them.

The classic Linux three-

step consists of three

commands:

the files needed for the transformation.

Nevertheless, sometimes there are diffi-

culties, which our second article eli-

minates starting on page 33.

■

./configure

make

make install

COVER STORY

Ya ST ........................................ 20

The Suse installation and configuration tool,

Ya ST, has developed into a powerful utility

over the years. We explore some of the fea-

tures of the powerful text version.

Aptitude ................................ 24

In its current version, Debian includes about

9,000 packages. The next version will

include around 14,000. Aptitude provides a

clearer view, and takes the pain out of find-

ing software.

Configure .............................. 28

Configure script errors are critical when it

comes to trying to install software. Find your

way around the warnings and solve the

problems.

Make ....................................... 33

After successfully negotiating the configure

script, users only need to negotiate the

make and make install steps to build a new

application. Although this may sound sim-

ple, the details can be tricky.

where, at the very

least, root privileges

are needed for the last

command. One of the

first two steps never-

theless often stops with

puzzling error messages.

Therefore, we are

going to look at these two

steps through a magnify-

ing glass: The article

starting on page 28 des-

cribes the configure step in

detail and helps you to

fix errors you might en-

counter. After running con-

figure successfully, the rest

should run pretty much

problem-free, simply be-

cause it is the job of

configure to look for all of

www.linux-magazine.com

July 2004

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