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In a perfect world, installing programs would be effortless. Need a music player? Click a button. Need CD burning software? Click a button. Need office software? You guessed it- Click a button! Installing programs, however, often boils down to searching tediously for CDs or poring through dozens of websites just to find the right version or program that you need. It can be expensive in both time and money; what's a poor computer user to do?

Believe it or not, some Linux distributions have come up with a pretty elegant answer. Their solution to the hassle of installing programs comes in the form of a "repository", a database of free programs maintained by the developers where thousands of programs are waiting at your fingertips. No more searching through CDs or websites- search and download programs efficiently and effectively!

Intrigued? I hope so. Scared? Don't be! Installing programs through repositories is quick, easy, and painless! To do it, simply open up your package manager (On Ubuntu Linux, it is located in "Administration->Synaptic Package Manager") and see what's offered. There are categories ranging from games to web servers; pick whatever you need or want and select it! Once you've selected all the programs you desire, simply click "Apply" and that's it- the package manager will automatically connect to the repository, download the program, and install it with no fuss!

All of the common applications are included in these repositories, and most users will rarely need a program not included in them. If you need to install a program not included in the repository, though, don't worry- though not quite as easy as the package manager, installing applications is still a pretty easy process. When looking for the program to download, choose a binary that's appropriate for your system (.deb for Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, for example, or .rpm for distributions like Red Hat). If the only file is a .bin file, that's okay too- it just requires a few more steps! Simply open a terminal, change to the directory where the .bin file is, and type in "sh file.bin" (no quotes, and replace file.bin with the actual name of the file. And presto! Your program is installed.

Sometimes there are no binaries, and there is only source code. This happens pretty rarely, and most casual Linux users may not run into it at all. If you do, however, it's still pretty easy- compiling has become a process that's not at all a headache like it used to be! Simply extract the source code to a directory of your choice. Open a terminal, change to the directory with the source, and type (all commands without quotes) "./configure" and press enter. Let it finish, then type "make" and press enter. Wait for that to finish, then type "sudo make install", press enter, and put in your password when prompted. Once that's done, your program's installed and ready to go!

So now you know how to install programs on Linux. It's a fun and efficient way to install programs, and you'll learn a little bit in the process- it sure beats searching around your desk for those dusty CDs you haven't used in ages! Get on downloading, good luck, and have fun installing!

Learn more about this author, Alexander Lourenco.
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