How to install downloaded software on MX-14?

[CloudWindMoonSun]

Hello everybody,

I know this is a very trivial question to you. But your answer helps me a lot. Actually I wanted to install FireFox on my machine. I downloaded it. It is a firefox-29.0.1.tar.bz2 file.
I googled it and apparently I can do the following to install it:

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tar xvjf firefox-29.0.1.tar.bz2
cd file
./configure
make
su
make install

On the other hand a few hours ago I installed Bluefish, where I only used this command:

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sudo apt-get install bluefish

I sort of understand that in case of FireFox what I have downloaded is - maybe - the source code, which needs to be compiled on my machine first, where in case of BlueFish I have liturally installed it. Now my questions:

• 1. Why isNOT there installable for all software available for Mx-14?
  2. Is there any way that I can find the installable version of FireFox?
  3. Supppose that one day I decided to uninstall FireFox how can I do that?

Many thanks in advance.

[tascoast]

Re:

2. Is there any way that I can find the installable version of FireFox?
3. Supppose that one day I decided to uninstall FireFox how can I do that?

In general, and as a beginner I stick to the main software sources, avoiding 'downloaded' applications and the issues of installing.


Firefox is available via Synaptic Package Manager. I am currently using v. 28.0 It can be removed the same way.

Bluefish is also available by the same method.

best wishes

Mick

[chrispop99]

Firefox is available from both the metapackage-installer, and via Synaptic. Both of these methods will be easier and safer than downloading a file.

If you wish to remove Firefox (or any other program), it's easiest to do it via Synaptic.

You would do well to read this section of the MX documentation:

http://www.mepiscommunity.org/doc_mx/synaptic.html

Chris

[CloudWindMoonSun]

Firefox is available via Synaptic Package Manager. I am currently using v. 28.0 It can be removed the same way.

Bluefish is also available by the same method.

Thanks for the information. How can you install FireFox or Bluefish from within the "Sysnaptic Package Manager"? I thought that's only for updating the software.

BTW,
In case of FireFox, when I unpacked the .tar file, it had the FireFox exectuable file in it, so no need to install it at all. Although it made life easier as I didn't need to compile it, but this makes me even more confused!!!

[chrispop99]

Thanks for the information. How can you install FireFox or Bluefish from within the "Sysnaptic Package Manager"? I thought that's only for updating the software.

First you read the documentation I provided the link to. Then if you are stuck, ask here.

Chris

[Adrian]

Thanks for the information. How can you install FireFox or Bluefish from within the "Sysnaptic Package Manager"? I thought that's only for updating the software.

BTW,
In case of FireFox, when I unpacked the .tar file, it had the FireFox exectuable file in it, so no need to install it at all. Although it made life easier as I didn't need to compile it, but this makes me even more confused!!!

Synaptic is used for installing packages (some would say that's its main function, upgrading the installed packages would be the secondary one).

Firefox package downloaded from Mozilla contains the pre-compiled program, you can download and start the program without compiling it, but it has some disadvantages, it doesn't show up in menus, unless you add it manually, and it won't be managed by the package manager. If you start to download a couple of programs this way it might get messy that's why is recommended to stick with the Package Manager at least at the beginning.

[uncle mark]

Your subject title exemplifies your problem.

In general, one does not download software from "out there" somewhere and then install it. That is the Windows Way. It's a hard concept to grasp, but most every beginner makes the same mistake.

[CloudWindMoonSun]

Thanks guys. I think I got it now. "Synaptic Package Manager" is the best (or maybe the only) place to go when it comes to install new software, uninstall them and upgrade them.

Can we say "all major software are pushed to the online repository servers and therefore Synaptic can contact the repositories and download them" ?

[Stevo]

A tar.gz (or tar.bz2, or tar.xz) file, commonly called a "tarball", is just a compressed file or set of files. It can contain anything, including just source code, or precompiled programs such as you found in Mozilla's. Mozilla also distributes their source code in a tarball, it's just harder to find.

Currently, the Firefox, Thunderbird, and Seamonkey in the repositories are just the Mozilla versions put into a "deb" package, plus some extra goodies so they show up in the menu. FF 29.0.1 is currently in the test repo, 28.0 in the main community repo. Debian changes Firefox a bit with some patches, so has to legally change the name to Iceweasel per the Mozilla license. Currently in the standard repos, you can get a long-term support release 24.5, but there's also the mozilla.debian.net repository which should have the newest release.

Also, those compiling directions are only the very simplest case. It's as if I wrote:

How to become an NBA champion:

1. Get four other people.
2. Bounce the ball with one hand, throw it to other people on your team.
3. Put the ball through your goal more than the other team does for their goal.
4. Profit!

Can we say "all major software are pushed to the online repository servers and therefore Synaptic can contact the repositories and download them" ?

That's what we'd have in an ideal world, but some software still has to be installed from outside the repos, maybe due to a license issue, or maybe a problem with compiling the latest version on a stable base. For example, we have an older version of Calibre, the great ebook program, in the repositories, but you can get and install, or update the latest version with a long, magical command off their webpage:

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su
<password>
wget -nv -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/master/setup/linux-installer.py | sudo python -c "import sys; main=lambda:sys.stderr.write('Download failed\n'); exec(sys.stdin.read()); main()"

[malspa]

1. Get four other people.

If possible, make sure one of them is named "LeBron."