this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
611 points (93.5% liked)
Technology
59202 readers
4017 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It’s a different paradigm for windows users. “Why won’t this exe/msi install on my computer?”
But also, once you realize the unlimited potential to customize it’s pretty special. I, for one, hate using anything without a tiling windows manager.
So how do you install things?
Red hat based? Install the RPM. Debian based? Install the deb, generally? Install from the repository. You can also install from source if you’d like
I don't know what any of that means.
You don't generally download the file like you would an exe or MSI on windows. Rather you enter a command line that tells Linux to connect to the repository (like an app store) of that particular type of Linux, pull the latest installation file and install it.
You can still download the file and install it directly, but it's not a straightforward double click like on windows.
It's not a GUI?
There are GUI wrappers that issue the equivalent commands for you, but a lot of Linux users would just write something like this on the command line:
sudo apt install vlc
That's how you would install VLC (media player) on Debian linux without any prior file download or browsing. It connects to the Debian repository for you, downloads and installs.
Install app from native app repository of chosen Linux distribution.
Look in the OS provided “App Store” first - GUI or not, your choice.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Look for a TRUSTED alternative App Store source. Then check the App Store again.
Still can’t find it? Look to see if there is a package available that your OS can recognize (different based on what flavor of Linux you’re running)
Still can’t find it? See if you can find the code to build the dang thing yourself.
Well yeah this is like asking an oboe player how they control pitch, and they respond "different embouchure is the universal way to do it, but adjusting the reed is the best way"
Go look it up if you don't know what the terms mean
Installing things on linux is generally the same as phones. There's a shop-like GUI where you can look up your applications and get them, they'll also update automatically.
If the software isn't in your distribution repository, that's when it starts to be like windows, you need to hunt it down and either get an appimage or something like that, or build and compile it yourself.