The simplicity of installing software on Linux

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The simplicity of installing software on Linux

I love the simplicity of installing open source software on a Linux box.

I had barely touched Linux (or a *nix command line) before I started in my current job, ignoring a few months with a little use of the Terminal on my iBook. Since being here though, I have picked up quite a bit as I've gone along. It took a little while to get used to at first, but it's sort of a second nature now - when it comes to some things, at least - to move over to the command line and do what I need to do there. It's very handy when developing software and working with revision control systems just to be able to do what you want by typing a few commands instead of doing it with the mouse through the graphical interface.

Installing new software is a breeze on Kubuntu (as it is on other Linux distributions) - simply type sudo apt-get install [name of software] and it'll do all the work for you. No need to go to a website, download it, unzip it and double click to install.

I needed to start drawing a diagram, so I asked my colleagues for a recommendation. They suggested Dia, so I went off and installed it and had the first cut of the diagram ready to go within half an hour.

Posted in Systems, Work at 1:34 PM on Tuesday 20 February 2007
Tags: Linux Kubuntu Dia

Comments

[dr.claw] Yes.. another convert... [/dr.claw]

Posted by: Victor Trac at February 20, 2007 3:16 PM

This was one of the things that I found so amazing when I started using Ubuntu last year. I had the impression of Linux being this enourmously complex thing that only programmers can use. Total rubbish! This is why Linux is going to win out in the end - the Ubuntu/Kubuntu developers or whoever is the next goldenchild of linux are going to make the GNU software so utterly trivial to install, there'll be no reason to look at Windows.

Meanwhile we look forward to the day of apt-get install osm.

PS - aptitude is the-same-but-better than apt-get on debian.

Posted by: Nick at February 23, 2007 12:21 PM

Ah yes, OpenStreetMap in a box. That'd be pretty cool!

Thanks for the tip Nick, I'll have to try out aptitude. Can I just do an apt-get install aptitude? Ah, the power ;)

This should come in handy to help me manage my installed packages

Posted by: Dan Karran at February 23, 2007 2:30 PM