Chapter 7. Installing software
Welcome to part 2 of our journey! Now that you’ve got Linux running and understand how it works, in terms of things like distributions and desktop environments, we’re going to spend time getting it ready for you to work with. The next 10 chapters are going to teach you to work with and customize your Linux environment so you can work efficiently. For instance, once you learn the command line, you might not ever want to go back to graphical programs. For now, let’s talk about a basic level of customization—installing new software on your system.
Every distribution comes with software preinstalled. In the last chapter we saw that GNOME and Unity each come with the Nautilus file manager and gedit text editor. But what if you don’t like those tools? The beauty of Linux is that you’re rarely stuck with software. In this chapter, you’re going to learn how to install and remove software with Linux. More specifically:
- I’ll discuss package managers, which are used to install and remove software.
- We’ll open and use the Ubuntu Software Manager to install Synaptic, another package manager.
- We’ll open and use Synaptic to install Vim.