Table of Contents for

Ubuntu: Up and Running

So, let’s install one of these games. To do this, double-click on the first result returned, Chess (gnome-chess), and you’ll see the screen shown in Figure 8-4 in which the program is described, accompanied by a screenshot and the program’s license details and price. At the time of this writing, all the programs in the Software Center are free, so I assume the latter information is there to support the addition of commercial programs in the future.

Figure 8-4. Viewing a program’s information page

If after reading this page you don’t wish to install the program, you can return to the main menu where you started browsing for software. Notice the button at the top of the main window called Chess, which shows you the current page you’re on, and the button labeled Get Free Software right before it (above the picture of the chess knight). These show the sequence of windows you’ve opened, and the Get Free Software button returns you to that window.

The left pane also has a button labeled Get Free Software, but that refers to the whole collection you’re in. The button under it, Installed Software, refers to the packages that your computer already has. We’ll use that button later.

Let’s install the Chess game on your computer. Click the Install button and enter your password when prompted by the Authenticate window that pops up. The lefthand pane will then show an additional item with the name In Progress, accompanied by a round icon with rotating arrows.

Once the installation has finished, the program’s information page will return, but the Install button will now be replaced with a Remove button, indicating that it has been installed. So, let’s verify that this is the case by clicking in the lefthand pane on the entry called Installed Software. You should now see the program listed in the righthand pane.

You can also check that the program has been installed by opening the Applications → Games menu, as shown in Figure 8-5, where you’ll see that you are now able to run the program by selecting it from the menu.

Figure 8-5. The chess game has now been installed

It’s just as easy to remove a program you no longer need. Simply open up the Ubuntu Software Center and click the Installed Software heading in the lefthand pane. Then either search for the program to remove by name, or because you’ll probably have a small number of installed programs, just scroll down the list until you find it.

Now double-click the program’s name, which in this case is Chess (gnome-chess), to display the information screen shown in Figure 8-6. This is the same as the initial screen in the Get Free Software section, except that the background color is different, the program is shown as having been installed, and there’s a Remove button.

To remove the program, click the Remove button and enter your password in the Authentication window that pops up. The In Progress entry will then appear for a while in the lefthand pane, after which the information screen changes to show the list of installed software, and the recently removed program will no longer be in this list.

The Software Center comes with a few extra features that are available from the menus. The first of these is Software Sources, available under the Edit menu. With it, you can choose the types of software to download and from which locations, among other things, as shown in Figure 8-7, which shows the contents of the Ubuntu Software Tab.

When you call up the Software Sources window, you must first enter your password. Then you’ll see a selection of five tabs, the first of which is Ubuntu Software. Under this tab, there are several checkboxes and a drop-down input, with which you can specify the types of software to display, as follows.

Canonical-supported and community-maintained software

Canonical-supported software is maintained by the programmers at Canonical, the company that publishes Ubuntu. Community-maintained software is maintained by members of the open source community at large. The only difference between the two is that non-Canonical programs have many different authors and maintainers and therefore they may not always have the same look and feel, or even the same level of testing, as Canonical programs.

Figure 8-6. The information page of an installed program

Figure 8-7. The Software Sources window

Even so, don’t be scared by the sound of this. Because the whole range of GNU and Linux software is continuously supported by the developers, bugs are quickly caught and corrected. Basically, this is Canonical’s way of saying “we think the software that we list from third parties is of sufficiently high quality to promote it, but we don’t maintain it or provide support for it.”

Download from

Depending on the country assigned to your Ubuntu account and your location in the world, the download server nearest to you will be selected by default. But you can change this to another one with this drop-down list. If the location you want isn’t displayed, select the Other… option to browse through servers from all over the world, as shown in Figure 8-8.

Figure 8-8. Choosing a different download server

Normally, you won’t need to change this setting, but it can be useful if, for example, the default server appears unresponsive (perhaps because it is currently down), in which case, you can select an alternative to try.

In fact, you can click the Select Best Server button to test a range of servers and find the fastest one for you. But be prepared to wait for a while as each of over 300 servers is checked in turn. If it takes too long, you can always click Cancel and go back to selecting one manually.

This tab allows you to include updates that are unsupported, as well as updated from other versions of Ubuntu. Unless you are an expert and know what you are doing, I recommend you leave all of the boxes unchecked, as shown in Figure 8-9.

Figure 8-9. The Other Software tab

The Updates tab lets you choose the types of updates you would like to receive, as shown in Figure 8-10.

Figure 8-10. The Updates tab

This tab is best left completely alone. It lists all the trusted providers of software and their encrypted keys, which are used to identify them as being who they claim to be. Figure 8-11 shows some of the providers you will see if you click this tab. The screen grab includes ubuntu.com, zend.com, and google.com, but you may see others.

Figure 8-11. The Authentication tab

This tab helps you give back to the Ubuntu community by reporting on which programs you have installed, as shown in Figure 8-12. The data supplied helps the developers see which programs are the most popular, and therefore select the ones deserving the most support and further development.

Don’t worry about your privacy, though, because all the data is sent anonymously, and you and your machine will not be associated with the programs you use; only the program names are collected to add to the totals for each.

Figure 8-12. The Statistics tab

The View menu, as shown in Figure 8-13, is another means by which you can quickly change between viewing all available applications and viewing just the ones maintained by Canonical.

Figure 8-13. The View menu

You’ll notice that the total number of available items (displayed in the bottom status bar) drops sharply when only the Canonical-maintained ones are displayed.

The other options in the menus mostly replicate actions you’ve already seen and that you can usually perform more quickly using the mouse to point, click, and select. So, there’s no need to detail them any further, other than mentioning that there’s additional help available in the Help menu, which may be useful if you are using a different version of Ubuntu, such as the Netbook Edition (or Remix).

Anyway, let’s persevere with finding a chess game using this system. There are a couple of ways to do this. First, click on the wide Status button at the lower left, and the upper-left pane will then let you choose the type of packages to display out of Installed, Not installed, and so on, as shown in Figure 8-16.

Figure 8-16. Selecting the “Not installed” packages

In the top-right pane I have selected the 3dchess game, and its details have been displayed in the lower-right pane. At this point, you can see what the program looks like by clicking Get Screenshot, which, if one is available, will download an image and display it in place of the button.

Marking a program for installation

If you decide you want to install the program, you can then click on the checkbox next to its name in the upper-right pane, and then select the “Mark for Installation” option, as shown in the close-up in Figure 8-17.

Figure 8-17. Marking the 3dchess program for installation

When you mark a program for installation, Ubuntu checks to see whether there are any other programs or data that also require downloading; if so, it pops up a window detailing them, as shown in Figure 8-18, where the additional item xaw3dg is also needed.

Figure 8-18. Click Mark to select any additional items required

You should generally click the Mark button at this point to include the dependency in your installation. If you press Cancel, you can go ahead and try to install the program you want, but this dependency will not be installed with it, and the program will probably fail when you try to run it. When you click Mark, the checkbox icon will change to show the program has been selected (as will those of any additional items to be installed).

Activating the installation process

You are now ready to perform the installation by clicking the Apply button, which will pop up a confirmation window like the one shown in Figure 8-19.

Figure 8-19. The confirmation dialog window

It is actually possible to mark many different programs for installation, and then later select them all for installation at the same time using the Apply button. In this case, all the programs you marked since the previous installation you performed will be listed in the confirmation window.

By clicking the triangle at the left of the entries in the white area, you can list all the items in each of the categories. You can also click the Show Details button to get additional information. I don’t recommend clicking the “Download package files only” checkbox, as you would then have to locate and install the packages yourself.

So, just click Apply and the program (or programs) will be downloaded and installed for you. Afterward, the top-right pane will no longer show the program(s), as it is only displaying packages that haven’t been installed.

To verify that the installation has worked, select Applications → Games and you’ll see 3D Chess is there, ready to be run.

Instead of browsing through the Synaptic categories, you can use the Quick Search input box. So, in the preceding example, just type chess into the box, and it will narrow down the packages displayed in the top-righthand pane to those whose filenames or descriptions match that word.

There will probably be many alternatives in the list, or some specialized programs that add extra functionality. You probably won’t want all the items displayed, so just mark the packages you want, and then apply the installation as in the previous example.

To remove a program, you can select the Installed category in the lefthand pane and browse for it in the top-righthand one. Alternatively, you can use the “Quick search” input box and type the program’s name (or part of it) to narrow down the items displayed, as shown in Figure 8-20.

Figure 8-20. Selecting a program to remove

When you have found the program to remove, you can click on its name to display its details in the bottom-right frame. You can also look at the checkbox next to the name to ensure that it has already been installed. Once you are certain it’s the right program, you can click the checkbox to call up a menu with a number of choices available to you, as shown in the close-up in Figure 8-21.

These choices will usually include Mark for Reinstallation, Mark for Removal, and Mark for Complete Removal. You may also see Mark for Upgrade if one is available. So just click Mark for Complete Removal to remove any configuration files along with the package.

The checkbox will then show a yellow x symbol to indicate that the package has been marked for complete removal. If you mark a package for normal removal (without deleting the configuration files), the x symbol will be red.

To finalize the package removal, click the Apply button to bring up the confirmation window shown in Figure 8-22.

Figure 8-21. Marking a program for removal

Figure 8-22. Confirming the removal of a package

Remember that before clicking the Apply button you are allowed to mark as many packages as you like for either installation or removal. This enables you to perform your housekeeping in one go. Therefore, any other actions you have chosen will be shown in this window, and you can view them by clicking the triangles shown next to each entry or by clicking the Show Details button.

So, when you are ready, click the Apply button to perform the removal (and any other selected actions). After the process has completed, you will be returned to Synaptic, with checkboxes newly filled for programs you just installed and cleared for those you’ve removed.

So far you’ve seen the Sections and Status buttons used to display the categories and installation statuses, but there are three other wide buttons at the bottom left: Origin, Custom Filters, and Search Results. With these, you can see where packages originate from, apply advanced filters for searching, and display the results from searches.

But as a new user to Ubuntu I wouldn’t worry too much about them, as you can do practically everything you need with the commands I’ve shown you so far.

Starting with the File menu, shown in Figure 8-23, you can save and read the markings you make, generate package download scripts, add download packages, or view the history of your use of Synaptic.

Figure 8-23. The File menu options

Only the last selection, History, is of use to you as a beginner to Ubuntu. With it you can view by month and year every change made to your system, which can be invaluable when you need to check exactly when you installed or removed a certain package.

The Edit menu mostly replicates buttons and features from elsewhere in the program, but it does include a very useful Fix Broken Packages facility, shown in Figure 8-24.

Figure 8-24. The Edit menu options

If any broken or corrupted packages are detected by Synaptic, it won’t allow any further changes to your system until all the broken packages have been fixed. The way you’re informed of this problem is an error message about “unsatisfied dependencies,” meaning that parts of a package are missing. Should that ever happen to you, you now know to use this option in the hope that it can fix the dependency.

When you select the Fix option, all the broken packages will be marked to be fixed, but you must then also click the Apply button (or select Apply Marked Changes), which will then cause the broken packages to be fixed by downloading the missing parts.

You probably won’t need to use this menu, as it mostly replicates the effect of clicking on the checkboxes next to packages, although there are a couple of advanced features that seasoned users can utilize, as shown in Figure 8-25.

For example, you can lock a package so that it won’t get upgraded when new versions become available. Also, Ubuntu installs many packages automatically because they are part of the default operating system. However, you can change this by checking and unchecking the “Automatically installed” checkbox.

There’s also the Download Changelog option, which provides information about changes to, and bugs closed, in a package. The Properties option brings up the Properties information window for a package, in which you can view a wide range of information, including the description, dependencies on other packages, versions released, and more. This information is divided into five tabs, as shown in Figure 8-26.

Figure 8-25. The Package menu

Figure 8-26. The Properties window

In the Settings menu, shown in Figure 8-27, the first entry, Preferences, can change settings in five different areas, with each assigned to its own tab.

Figure 8-27. The Settings menu

Again, as a newcomer to Ubuntu I wouldn’t recommend you change anything in this window, or you run the risk of rendering Synaptic incapable of correctly installing and updating packages.

That said, if you know what you are doing, you can use the Preferences window tabs, shown in Figure 8-28, to modify the confirmation options, set the default view of properties, change the columns, fonts, and colors of packages, decide what to do with temporary files, manage the history, set up a proxy, and change the package upgrade behavior.

The Settings menu also includes the Repositories option, which you saw earlier in Figure 8-7 in the discussion of the Ubuntu Software Center, where it was referred to by the name Software Sources. All the tabs shown are the same as in the Software Center Advanced Features section.

The Filters option brings up the window shown in Figure 8-29, in which you can specify exactly which packages will and won’t be displayed by Synaptic. You probably won’t need to use it, though, until (or unless) you become fully proficient in using Synaptic.

As the Set Internal Option states when you click it: “Only experts should use this.” So, it’s probably best left alone.

Finally, in the Settings menu, the Toolbar option lets you decide whether to display the icons, how they should look, whether to show accompanying text, and where to place it.

Of course, as you’d expect from Ubuntu, there’s also plenty of assistance available in the Help menu. You can call it up by pressing F1 or by selecting Help → Contents. Or you can bring up a summary by selecting Help → Quick Introduction, or view the online help with Help → Get Help Online.

Figure 8-28. The Preferences window

Figure 8-29. The Filters window

Before using apt-get, it’s usually a good idea to enter the following, which will update your computer with the latest version information on all the packages it knows about (as well as adding packages that have recently been released):

sudo apt-get update

As ever, the sudo command starts the line to temporarily acquire super user privileges. The first time you use it, you’ll have to enter your password, but you won’t be prompted again for your password for another 15 minutes.

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo apt-cache search chess

sudo apt-get install packagename

sudo apt-get remove packagename

apt-get help

man apt-get