Where to look for programs for Ubuntu. Troubleshooting Ubuntu Application Manager
This article contains several recommendations, following which you can then get an excellent, fully functional, secure operating system. I tried to make the article as short as possible so as not to bore you with a long list. But you can be sure that everything you need is here to use the system freely and comfortably.
As was said before, to have secure system, you need to keep it in current state, install all security updates and tool patches on time. This is especially important for beta versions.
You can update the system using a GUI utility or in a terminal. We will look at updating the system in the GUI.
First you need to update the repositories software. Open the Dash menu and type in search Software update.
Open the application and go to the tab Other software. Check both boxes:
Then close the application, you will be asked to enter a password, then the updates will download:
Run it again Software update from Dash, and this time the program should show available updates and offer to install them:
To update Ubuntu 16.04, just enter the following two commands in the terminal:
sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
2. Installing basic applications
Setting up Ubuntu 16.04 after installation includes installation additional applications to improve the usability of the system. This is an Internet browser, various editors, viewers and utilities. By default, Ubuntu comes with Firefox, but it is not the most used browser in the world, it still lags behind Chrome even in terms of features and functionality.
You can find Chromium in the Gnome application manager, which now ships by default with Ubuntu 16.04.
In addition, you may also need the following applications:
- Skype- the world's most popular IP telephony service
- Pidgin - best messenger for Linux
- Deluge- one of the best torrent clients
- Mega- excellent cloud storage
- CrashPlan- backup system
- Telegram- secure cross-platform messenger
- Uget- one of best managers downloads
- Tor- provides anonymity on the Internet.
3. Installing the Clementine player
Clementine is one of the best to date music players for Linux with the widest range of capabilities. It is comparable in functionality to applications such as VLC, Rthythmbox, Audacious, etc. Setting up Ubuntu 16.04 after installation cannot occur without installing a normal player.
One of the most characteristic features this player - the ability to connect to online music streaming services without having to launch a browser or other third party application. You can easily connect Spotify, last.fm, sky.fm, Google drive, Onedrive and other services. It also has its own equalizer.
You can install the program using the following command:
sudo apt-get install clementine
Other media apps worth your attention:
VLC - universal media player with a very large list of media formats and huge functionality
Audacity is a simple, minimalistic audio editing tool for both beginners and professionals. Supports quite a lot of functions.
Kodi (XBMC) - home cinema with open source code. It has extended support for media formats from mp3 to the most incredible. You can open music, videos or photos.
Handbrake- another application for working with media files, namely converting.
Spotify - official Spotify client for Linux.
OpenShot one of the best simple videos editors for Linux. The program interface is very simple, and in most cases the functions are quite sufficient.
Ubuntu-restricted-extras- codecs and various plugins, install if you do not want problems with playing various formats.
Gimp- one of the best tools photo editing for Linux.
To install Spotify, type the following commands:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys BBEBDCB318AD50EC68650906
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install spotify-client
All other programs can be installed from official repositories.
4. Installation of Synaptic and AppGrid
It's always nice to have backup options when it comes to installing software, especially if you're a bit of a fan of the new App Center.
Synaptic also supports a graphical interface without all the unnecessary stuff - just required functions. To install Synaptic, press Ctrl+Alt+T and run:
sudo apt-get install synaptic
You can also install it from the Application Center. AppGrid can only be installed using the terminal by running these commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:appgrid/stable
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install appgrid
Now you have four ways to install applications in Ubuntu: through the terminal, in the application center, in Synaptic and AppGrid.
5. Disable online search
Dash Menu Search still includes internet search results from sites like Amazon, Wikipedia, etc. These may pose some security risk to your system.
Disabling this feature is very easy. Open the utility Settings, go to item Security and privacy and on the Search tab disable Online search results:
6. Install Ubuntu Tweak Tool to customize your system
The Ubuntu interface is quite beautiful by default, and the settings in the system minimal amount. But if you need more fine tuning Ubuntu 16.04, you can install additional utilities.
Unity Tweak Tool is a great tool that allows you to change Unity and make it your own. You can install from the application center:
7. Install the graphics driver
If you want to receive maximum performance from your video card, initial setup Ubuntu 16.04 will not do without installation graphics driver. This will provide smoother rendering GUI, and will also allow you to play Steam games on Linux, video editing, etc.
Search for Dash Programs and updates, run the utility, go to the tab Additional drivers and select the components you want, then click apply.
8. Keyboard customization
By default, only Russian and English layout. If you need a different one, click on the switch layout icon on the panel and select Text input options.
In this window you can add an additional language or change the keyboard shortcut key.
9. Disable crash reporting
If you are not going to inform developers about errors and failures that have occurred in the system, you can disable reports about them. It's better, of course, to send data, especially in beta, - this will help developers fix bugs.
There are many ways to install programs on Ubuntu Linux. Here you can use the application store built into the system, and the package manager, and install programs from repositories using commands in the terminal, as well as download software packages from the Internet, and then install them - also different ways. And in this article I want to talk in detail about each method of installing programs on Ubuntu Linux.
Ubuntu Application Center
Center Ubuntu applications- this is what in other systems is usually called the “App Store”, for example in Android it is analogous Google Play. You can find it in the main menu of Ubuntu if you start typing the word “center” in the search bar.
In the application center, everything is quite simple: on the left there are categories ("Games", "Office", "Internet" and so on), on the top there is a search bar. We find the desired application, click “Install”, enter the administrator password, wait a little and everything is ready to use the newly installed program.
The Application Center contains all the programs that are available in the official Ubuntu repositories (i.e., "repositories"), as well as paid and free ones. paid programs and games from third party sources. If you want to install free program from third-party sources, then despite the fact that the price of the program will be indicated as zero, instead of the “Install” button you will still see the “Buy” button - do not be alarmed, feel free to click. And know that in any case, without your knowledge, they will never take money from you here, even if you try to install paid programs - before you buy it, you will have to fill in your payment information (number credit card and so on), so chance is certainly excluded here.
Please be aware that the Ubuntu App Center does not contain all existing software. Ubuntu programs, but nevertheless, beginners should start searching required applications exactly from here.
Synaptic package manager
Synaptic is a graphical package management utility that was used in Ubuntu long before it had an "App Center". Today, by default, this program is not available in Ubuntu at all, but you can install it, for example, by clicking here. Let me remind you that all installed programs can be found in the main menu of Ubuntu by starting to enter its name or what it is for in the search bar, as shown above in the image with the “App Center”.
With Synaptic you can very easily and conveniently view which packages you already have installed, remove them, update them (if updates are available), and also search in the repositories required packages by name or description. For all this, Synaptic has a very good set of filters by category ("Games", "Administration", "Internet", etc.), by status ("Installed", "Not installed", "Manually installed", "Updating" ", etc.), by origin (i.e. from what source this or that program is installed or can be installed) and others.
Synaptic is a much more "professional" program, so to speak, compared to Application Center. One to search required packages she is simply irreplaceable.
ِapt-get - manage packages from the terminal
The next method for installing programs is apt-get. By the way, apt-get can not only install them, but also remove, update, download lists of packages from the Internet, and much more. In general, everything that Synaptic can do, but only from command line. And at first glance, it may look scary, especially for beginners, but don’t rush - in most cases apt-get is the simplest and in a fast way to install something in Ubuntu, and this is why most of the instructions you find on the Internet for installing anything in Ubuntu include terminal commands using apt-get.
Using apt-get assumes that you know exactly what you want. For example, you want to install text editor Geany, then you need to do next command in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install geany
Let's look at what was written briefly:
sudo- means that the commands following it will be executed on behalf of the system administrator (since only the administrator has the right to install or delete anything);
apt-get- actually calls himself package manager apt-get we're talking about;
install- command to install the package. There are also many other commands, some of which I will list below in examples;
geany- the name of the package to be installed, and in in this case, this is the Geany text editor. You can specify multiple packages by simply putting a space between them.
Here are some other examples of using apt-get:
Download lists available applications from the Internet (roughly speaking, “check for updates”):
sudo apt-get update
Install all available updates:
sudo apt-get upgrade
Install vlc player And graphics editor gimp with one command:
sudo apt-get install vlc gimp
You can also remove the above mentioned ones with one command, saving their settings in the system:
sudo apt-get remove vlc gimp
The same thing, but with all settings cleared:
sudo apt-get purge vlc gimp
Also, when working with apt-get, you can use one nice feature in the Ubuntu terminal: autocompletion. Assuming you don't know the full package name, for example, if you want to install add-ons in Gimp, then you can type "sudo apt-get install gimp" in the terminal and press the "Tab" key - you will automatically be offered various packages starting with " gimp*".
Here's how to install anything very easily using the command line and apt-get in Ubuntu. Now imagine that if I were explaining to you, as a newbie to Ubuntu, how to install Gimp, I would give you just one command: “sudo apt-get install gimp”, as opposed to a whole saga about what you need to find in the main menu of Ubuntu Ubuntu application center, write “Gimp” in the search bar, select the appropriate package and click on the “Install” button, not taking into account the speed of launching the application center itself and running several meters across the table.
GDebi package installer
If in the Ubuntu repositories the desired program was not found, or was found, but not latest version(and this happens often), then most likely you will go to the website of the program or game developer and download for installation package in *.deb format. When you double-click on no, the “Ubuntu Application Center” will open and you can easily install it by clicking on the corresponding button. However, if you do this procedure quite often, then you will probably get tired of the very slow startup and operation of the Application Center. And then the very small and fast GDebi utility will come to your aid, which can be installed by clicking or using the command in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install gdebi
After it is installed, click on the downloaded package right click mouse and select "Open with - GDebi package installer". GDebi will open the package and install it faster than Ubuntu Application Center.
Installing downloaded packages from the terminal
In addition to the GDebi graphical utility, you can install packages downloaded from the Internet in Ubuntu with a simple command in the terminal. To do this you need to run the command:
sudo dpkg -i package_name
For example, if you downloaded a package from VirtualBox from the official website, and most likely now it is in the "Downloads" folder in your home directory, then you can install it from the terminal like this:
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/virtualbox-4.3_4.3.8-92456~Ubuntu~raring_amd64.deb
ٌBy the way, auto-completion also works here, so you can just start entering the name of the file with the package and press Tab - the rest of the file name will be completed by itself. dpkg also supports templates, that is, you can write it like this:
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/virtualbox*.deb
Which is very convenient if you downloaded a program that comes in the form of many packages (for example, many games or LibreOffice downloaded from the official website) - you can simply put all the packages in one folder, and then run something like this command:
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/*.deb
(this example will install ALL packages from the Downloads folder).
Installing programs from third-party repositories
Majority necessary programs are stored in the official Ubuntu package repositories ("repositories"), from where they are downloaded whenever you install something through the Ubuntu Application Center or apt-get in the terminal. However, some applications (for example, narrow-profile, rarely used or recently appeared) are not in the official Ubuntu repositories, or they are, but in older versions. In such cases, it is usually necessary to add a new application source ("repository") to the system.
Usually, articles with instructions for installing something already contain ready-made commands, which you just need to copy into the terminal and execute. I want to give an example of such commands here with comments to clarify them for new Ubuntu users.
For example, to install classic menu ClassicMenu-Indicator, you must first connect its repository, i.e. add to your system's application sources the source from which it should be installed and updated. The developer's website provides a ready-made command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:diesch/testing
sudo- run as system administrator;
add-apt-repository- add a repository;
ppa:diesch/testing- repository name.
Once the repository is added, it is necessary for the Ubuntu system to download the list of applications that are in this source. To do this, use the command:
sudo apt-get update
and finally, installing the package:
sudo apt-get install classicmenu-indicator
We talked in detail about how apt-get works at the beginning of this article, so if these commands are not clear to you, return to the corresponding heading above.
Installing programs from source
You can often hear today from people who are very far from Linux that if you switch to Ubuntu or others Linux distributions- "you will install programs from source codes." Of course, such a possibility exists, but the necessity is very doubtful. And just 10 years ago, the average Linux user installed programs exactly this way - compiled them from source texts, often encountering many pitfalls. If you decide to install a program on Ubuntu from source today - I really don't think you need to. Read this article from beginning to end to see that all existing modern programs for Linux, with very rare exceptions, you can install either from the repositories, or by downloading the *.deb package and simply clicking on it.
If you still decide to take such a big step, read the INSTALL and README files, which are usually supplied in the archive with the source code, in which you will find instructions for compiling and installing the program - they can vary greatly from one program to another.
Installing applications on Ubuntu Linux, three methods on how to do it.
- Linux has become so popular in Russia that every year more and more articles appear and step by step instructions, using different images of this operating system. In this article I will tell you how you can install programs and remove them in operating system Ubuntu Linux. I won’t make much of an introduction, but I’ll get to the point.
- This is probably the most easy way install the program, since this option does not require updating, only installation. You can open the terminal by typing the key combination:
- Alt + Ctrl + T
- A terminal will open in front of you in which you need to type a single command:
- sudo apt-get install putty
- This command will install itself ssh client from the repository. Let's break it down piece by piece:
- sudo - Run with elevated super user rights. After typing this command, you will be required to enter the user password.
- apt-get - This is a package management tool, generally speaking.
- install - This says what needs to be installed.
- putty - The name of the program or package depending on what you are installing. On this moment installed putty ssh client.
- Find installed program You can use search on your computer, the topmost icon in the sidebar.
- You can remove a program installed through the terminal by typing the opposite word Uninstall and so on, as in the installation example.
- This method is even simpler and does not require entering commands, only using the mouse. Go to the site from which you want to install the program, find the download link for your operating system, is it Linux? there may be a variety of distributions. Everything is described on the site, don’t worry, even some of them say Ubuntu or Debian, etc.
- We go to the download folder or go as usual through the browser as we downloaded to the folder. Right-click the downloaded file and context menu select: Open in program => Gdebi package installation programs. Next, a window will open showing which packages will be installed and an install button:
- As you can see, everything is simple and then we find the installed program again through the search. But in order for this method to work, you must first install the Gdebi package installer. Then this third method will tell you how to install other programs from the application manager, let’s kill two birds with one stone.
- The Ubuntu Application Manager is located in the sidebar and looks like Google store Play market, though it’s already on the computer and not on the Internet. But installation from there is not complicated at all and only takes selecting with the mouse required application. I will give an example of installing the GDebi package installer from the application manager, which will subsequently be installed as shown in the second option in this article. We go to the application manager in the sidebar and in the system => other section, we find the GDebi package installer:
- Go in and click install, there will be only one button. Are you waiting? complete installation during the process you will be asked to enter a password, this is normal in any installation case. When finished, you will see the following two buttons with which you can delete already installed package if you don’t need it, or any other program that was previously installed? having made a similar path to it. Or run it already installed application program.
- Of course, like in any other operating system, it may happen that the application manager will not work. If this happens, you can go to our forum where you will learn several options on how to fix it. Ask your question or share your skills and knowledge. The easiest way to get the application manager to work is to open a terminal and reinstall:
Installing PuTTy client using terminal:
Installation using Gdebi package installer
Installation from Ubuntu Application Manager
Application manager not working in Ubuntu?
Application Center- an old GUI program for managing installed software, used in Ubuntu until 16.04. Later it was decided to abandon its further development in favor of Application Manager from the Gnome Project. Ubuntu comes with a very modified version, fortunately the internal architecture of this program is designed for this. It itself is written in C and works quite quickly (unlike the previous application center in Python), and has a developed system of plugins.
However, these programs differ radically in their approach. The Gnome (and Ubuntu) application manager uses AppStream, a database with metadata about program components in the open source software ecosystem, as a source of software information. Apt regularly downloads it from the update mirror. apt team update or automatically. Debian-based distributions use the DEP-11 format.
For some reasons in currently This database mainly contains information about programs that have a graphical user interface. And due to the fact that for the most part this database is collected by the automated appstream-generator tool based on .desktop files, the implication is true: “If the program package installs a .desktop file with an icon for the menu, this application can be found in AppStream.”
But in fact, in application manager the filter is still applied - it displays in the list only programs with GUI, that is, those marked with type=desktop-application . It is assumed that if you need a console program, it is much easier to install it directly using Apt.
conclusions
Application Manager uses AppStream - a distribution-independent list of applications in Linux world and SPO. However, packages are installed from their regular repositories that Apt uses.
Application Center uses the Debian or Ubuntu archive infrastructure directly, without resorting to AppStream or DEP-11.
Utilities
You can access the AppStream database stored on your computer from the command line using the utility appstreamcli from the appstream package.
The lists themselves in DEP-11 format are stored in the /var/lib/app-info/yaml directory.
However, you won’t find user reviews there (there are only descriptions). Program ratings are downloaded from the reviews.ubuntu.com server once every three months, all available at once, comments - when opening the page with the application. The plugin /usr/lib/gs-plugins-9/libgs_plugin_ubuntu-reviews.so is responsible for this.
Regarding gksu: I have the Debian unstable repository connected, and gksu.desktop is listed in yaml from there, so Application Manager finds it in search. However, you should refrain from using this utility - it is considered obsolete in the future