What package format to download

Revision as of 15:58, 13 November 2012 by Jerry bond (Talk | contribs)

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When you want to install packages in MEPIS, search in this order (easiest/most-reliable to hardest):

if the package is available in apt-repository-list pool (use Synaptic)
if the package is available on some website as .deb file, download it onto your desktop, then
- MEPIS 11: just click it, and Gdebi will start and ask for root's password
- Before MEPIS 11: right click on it and select open with 'KPackage' (or if you like the command line "dpkg -i packagename.deb") (If incompatible dependent libs occur, then do a "dpkg -r packagename'" to remove the partial-install, and then go find a more compatible .deb, or if a .rpm is also available, try 'alien' as mentioned below.)
if the package is available in .rpm format, you can install it with alien.
if the package is a .jar Java file, install it with "java -jar packagename.jar"
if the package is a .bin run it with "sh packagename.bin", if that doesn't work, make it executable by right-clicking the package, select Permissions tab and check "Is executable" (in a terminal: "chmod +x packagename.bin") and run it with "./packagename.bin" (same procedure for .sh and .run packages)
if the package is available in a tarball tar.gz or .tar.bz2 or .tbz: untar it and look for Install script (read INSTALL and/or README files provided with the tarball)
- if the tarball contains the source code, read this: Compiling