Category: Software

How To: Add Ubuntu’s Default Repositories

The headline is correct that, in today’s article, I’ll explain how to add Ubuntu’s default repositories – in the terminal. Seeing as I’m doing so, I’ll tell you about each repository as we go along. They exist for different reasons, so we might as well know how and why.

This article is probably only interesting to new Ubuntu users who want to learn to do things in the terminal. That’s a lofty goal, though I’ve already explained how to reset Ubuntu’s default repositories – but that’s graphical. It’s also likely quicker to do this in a GUI. Still, we might as well cover this. 

I see no reason to make the intro section very long. The article will be plenty long. So, onto the article!

Add Ubuntu’s Default Repositories:

Yup. You guessed it. You’re going  to need an open terminal. Many of my articles do. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

You’re also going to need Ubuntu, or an official Ubuntu flavor. I can’t recommend trying this will all Ubuntu derivatives, as I have not ever tested this in all Ubuntu derivative. So, only do this if you are using Ubuntu or an official flavor of Ubuntu – or it may mess up your system. You  have been warned.

About Repositories:

If we’re going to be writing about repositories, allow me to explain what those are. They’re central points from which you download software and software upgrades. They are there to provide the software you need, though not all software is included.

There’s generally a lot of software in them and some folks will only install software included in their default repositories. (Some folks will refuse even some software in the available repos, as the repositories may vary based on the licenses used by the software within.)

Ubuntu’s Main Repository:

Inside this repository, you’ll come across all the software the system needs to have a running system and a bunch of applications. All the software in this repository is FOSS (Free Open Source Software).

You already have this repository enabled, but stuff happens. If you’ve somehow disabled it (don’t do that) you can add it back with:

Ubuntu’s Universe Repository:

This repository contains software that is also FOSS – but Ubuntu can’t vouch for the update state or software inside the Universe repository. They are packages managed by the community, not by Ubuntu themselves.

It’s software you can install and doesn’t really come with all that many risks as the above may sound. Stuff tends to get updated pretty well. There are a lot of diligent people who tend to this sort of stuff. Upgrades are usually fairly rapid. To enable Ubuntu’s Universe repository, you’d run this command:

Ubuntu’s Multiverse Repository:

 In Ubuntu’s Multiverse repository, you’ll find software that is not FOSS. Due to licensing reasons, the folks behind Ubuntu can not maintain any of this software.

The software gets updated, but nothing in this archive is going to have Ubuntu doing so. Ubuntu also can’t ship this repository as enabled by default. To enable the Multiverse Repository, use this command:

Ubuntu’s Restricted Repository:

In Ubuntu’s Restricted repository, you’ll also have software that is not FOSS. The Multiverse repository contains things like drivers for hardware that doesn’t have FOSS drivers available. Well, the Restricted repository is where drivers exist.

A number of people are sticklers for FOSS-only operating systems. plus there’s the licenses to worry about, mean that these end up in a repository all there own. If you’re using hardware that doesn’t have FOSS drivers, you might need the Multiverse repository. To enable the Multiverse repository, you’ll want to use this:

Ubuntu’s Partner Repository:

In Ubuntu’s Partner repository, it’s still software that doesn’t have a FOSS license. It’s Ubuntu adding the software for partners of Ubuntu. It’s useless and will be axed at some point. (It has been empty in recent Ubuntu iterations.)

So, you can forget about this one. I will explain how to enable the Partner repository, as it’s both obvious and I’m pretty sure it’s still a thing on older versions of Ubuntu, and the LTS variants are going to be around for a while longer. It’s easy to enable Ubuntu’s Partner repository, the command is simply:

Closure:

Well, there you have it. You have another article and this one tells you to add Ubuntu’s default repositories. There’s a GUI way to do so, but this one takes place in the terminal. Besides, I already showed you how to do it graphically. This article almost got missed. I was at a funeral and that took a bunch of time and energy. But, I just couldn’t resist keeping up the same publication schedule.

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Let’s Install Microsoft Edge

Today, we’re going to learn how to install Microsoft Edge. That’s the browser made by Microsoft that even has a Linux version. That’s right, it’s from Microsoft but has a Linux version – and a version packaged for pretty much everyone.

We’ll be installing on Linux Mint, just to mix things up a bit. It’s really not that much of a change, it’s still using apt. It just so happens that I’m sitting at a Linux Mint computer when I’m writing this. We might as well use GDebi while we’re at it.

Yes, I’m well aware that many of you hate Microsoft with a passion. That’s fine. If you don’t want to install Microsoft Edge, just move on and don’t bother those of us who are curious about the browser. You’ll have another article in a couple of days, and it quite likely won’t have anything to do with Microsoft.

If you don’t know, Microsoft Edge is based on Chromium – which is the opensource version of Chrome, more or less. Chromium doesn’t have feature parity with Chrome, so it’s not quite the same version. Chrome is mostly based on it.

There are many browsers based on Chromium. Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, etc.? They’re all based on Chromium. There are only so many browser engines out there, and Chromium being opensource means people are going to use it. Microsoft jumped on the bandwagon with their Edge and made it available for Linux users. So, we’re going to…

Install Microsoft Edge:

This article requires an open terminal, but only for a minute. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

To keep things easy, we’re going to install GDebi. As we’re doing this on Mint, the command will work with any apt-using distro, the command to install GDebi is:

Follow any prompts to ensure you install GDebi properly.

Next, fire up your favorite browser and:

Click to download Microsoft Edge for Linux (make sure to get the right one for your distro). There are a number of choices, so pick the right version of Microsoft Edge for you.

Let it download, say to your Downloads directory. When your download is complete, right click on it and choose to open it with GDebi directly from the right click menu.

That part is easy, just let it do its preliminary checks and then  you can click on the install button (upper right) when it’s ready to be installed. Later, if you don’t like it, you can open the .deb with GDebi again and opt to uninstall the package. See? It’s pretty handy.

Closure:

I actually wrote a review of Edge before, but it’s on the old site and not really very good. Even if you can’t stand Microsoft, it’s not a bad browser. It’s not one that I’m going to use in my day-to-day browsing, largely due to lethargy, but it’s still a viable browser.

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How To: Search With apt

Today we’ll learn how to search with apt. There are any number of reasons why you’d want to do this. You can use this to find applications by name or subject. Maybe you want to find files that meet a certain criteria? It could be that you’ve forgotten the name of the application you’re thinking of? Perhaps you want to know if an application is available in the repositories before you go seeking it elsewhere?

There are all sorts of reasons, including those, why you might want to search with apt. Obviously, this requires an operating system that uses apt, so that limits you to things like Debian, Ubuntu, official Ubuntu flavors, Linux Mint, etc… So, well, it’s a pretty sizable number of distros where this will work.

This will be a pretty simple article. It will also be pretty brief. I’ve likely mentioned searching in another apt article, but it’s important that we cover it. Alas, I’m running out of things that make for longer articles (in the notes I’m working from), so this is just another article where I’m trying to make you aware that certain tools exist.

This should absolutely be a short and easy to understand article. In some recent commentary, I realized that what’s ‘simple’ to me is something that someone else has been dealing with for the past year. Even my easier articles have the chance to help people figure out their Linux problems. Good… It makes me feel better when I write an ‘easy’ article.

So, with all that said… Let’s learn how to:

Search With apt:

This article pretty much requires an open terminal, like oh so many other articles on this site. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, and you should by now – if you’ve been following along long enough, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

Now, it should go without saying, apt is how you interact with your package manager. It’s how you install, uninstall, or otherwise manage your software in the terminal. You could insist on using a GUI to install software, in which case this won’t be of much interest to you, or you could just do it all in the terminal. Either way, if you are using a different package manager then this will be of no value to you.

Me? I prefer to do this sort of stuff in the terminal because I find it easier and faster. I’ve already got a terminal open anyhow, so I might as well use it.

Anyhow, with your terminal open, go ahead and type:

For example:

Seriously, if you’ve never used the search function, go ahead and try the above command. You might be surprised by what you find.

Now, if you’re trying to narrow it down some, you can use the –names-only flag. Which isn’t as accurate as it could be. For example, try:

But, as near as I can tell, that’s searching not just the names but also searching the one-liner description. Like, if you run the above command you’ll also see ‘terminator’, which is definitely not ‘terminal’.

However ‘terminator’ includes ‘terminal’ in the description. So, I’m not sure where that’s going with that and the man pages weren’t all that helpful. You can also use RegEx (Regular Expressions, for the uninitiated). For example,  you can run:

This, of course, only works if you have Google’s Chrome repositories enabled. Otherwise, pick something else to test this with. Or, just trust me when I say RegEx works, which the man page will confirm.

Anyhow, our example command from above would (on this computer) would have an output that looks like this:

Which, as you can see, means I have multiple versions of Chrome available. So, that’s something positive in my life! But, the point is, I did a search with apt and came away with the information I wanted. I’d normally send you to the application’s man page, but in that probably won’t make it all that much clearer. 

Closure:

Yeah, that’s it. You can now search with apt and find what you’re looking for. Use some of your own search terms, like apt-cache search image editor, and see what sorta results you get. It’s not the most refined, but it’s an effective way to search with apt.

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Let’s Learn Some apt Basics

Today we’ll be learning a little about some apt basics. This is only useful if your distro uses apt to manage software. If you aren’t using a distro that does (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc) then this probably isn’t an article that will interest you much, and that’s fine. With the great variety there is in the Linux world, it won’t always be an article that matters to you. Better luck tomorrow! Well, two days from now… 

In the past we’ve covered quite a few apt commands. Here are a few that are poorly formatted ’cause, you know, WordPress…

How To: Clear The apt Cache

Use ‘apt’ To Download A Program And Its Dependencies

Use ‘apt-cache’ To Find An Application’s Homepage

Those are a few – but there are actually more than that. If you’re unfamiliar with apt, you can click any of those articles and learn more about it.

For those of you whose systems use apt to manage packages, this article is for you. If you aren’t aware, apt is the package manager application that you’ll interact with more often than not (if you do things in the terminal).

Apt has a number of commands, of course. As a package manager, it’s bound to be a robust and potentially complicated application. Today, we’ll just be covering a few simple apt commands that you’re most likely to use. It will not be an exhaustive article because of time constraints, reader attention limits, and usefulness. My goal was never to replicate man pages. You’ve still gotta read ’em.

So then, without further ado…

Some apt Basics:

If you want to use apt, you have to have an open terminal. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard. Press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal now open, you can easily install applications with apt. You’ll need to know the package name for the software you want to install, however. So, you can search for packages easily enough:

For example, you can use ‘terminal’ in there as a keyword and get a ton of options, all of which should be installable easily. Again, these are just apt basics.

Now that you know, or you may already have known, the package name, you can install it with:

You don’t need to do the runaround with dpkg for local .deb files, by the way. I’m not sure why people still suggest that? If there’s a good reason for doing it that way, please let me know in the comments. You can just use apt and it works just fine – including resolving dependencies (when they’re able to be resolved). To install a local .deb file with apt:

If you want to get the information for a specific package, you can use the ‘show’ command. That’s easy enough:

If you want to see the dependencies, that is the other applications that need to be installed in order to make it work, then you just check the dependencies with:

If you want to remove a package with apt, then you can just read this article to decide which command is right for your needs:

‘sudo apt remove’ vs ‘sudo apt purge’

That’ll answer it nicely enough.

Closure:

There you have it. You have an article about apt basics, and that’s all it is. You’ll note that not all apt commands need elevated permissions, so there’s no need to use sudo unless you’re adding or removing software. The other commands can be run without elevated permissions.

There’s more to apt. Yes, yes there is. Type man apt and you’ll get an idea of the available options. This article is just some apt basics, the things I think you’re most likely to need on a day to day basis. 

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Let’s Reboot Your Linux Computer

Today is another article with one of those things you probably already know, it’s about how you can reboot your Linux computer. Specifically, we’re going to reboot from the terminal. You can use the GUI to reboot easily enough, but if that’s frozen and you don’t really want to do a hard restart, you might as well reboot it if you can.

If you can’t reboot your computer because it appears frozen, consider the Magic SysReq Keys. (More specifically, the REISUB method.)

If you aren’t already aware, there are all sorts of ways to reboot your Linux computer. Like oh so many things in Linux, there’s a multitude of ways. We’re just going to cover a few of them, because you really don’t need to know more. Well, if you do need to know more,  you probably already know those ways to reboot your Linux computer!

It’s also another fairly simple article. That’s good (for me) as it’s a bit like work lately and I don’t want the site to really be about work but rather being about a hobby. If it’s work, I wanna get paid… 

This is also useful information if you’re working on something remote. You don’t want to shut that system down and have to have someone go physically turn it back on, so you reboot the system – making sure to reboot the right system and not the system you’re physically using. I’ve done that more times than I care to share – and I’ve done the reverse as well. It’s seldom good if you enter the reboot command and immediately follow it with a verbal, “Oops.”

Reboot Your Linux Computer:

This article requires an open terminal, because we’ll be learning how to reboot your Linux computer from said terminal. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal now open, let’s start with the easiest of the commands to reboot your Linux computer:

With some distros, that’ll be all you need. With others, you may need to have elevated permissions. This is also often true if you’re connected remotely, via SSH. So, in those instances, you’ll need to preface it with sudo and use your password when asked. Like so:

If you want,  you can also use the shutdown command. That’s pretty easy, you can just use:

The -r flag tells the system to reboot and the ‘now‘ means to do so right now – immediately. You can play around with that ‘now’ bit, like so:

Instead of ‘now‘ you’ll see there’s a ‘1‘ and that’s how many minutes you want to wait before rebooting the system. You can change that to any number you’d like, I suppose.

Finally, you can use systemd to reboot. Why? Because of course you can! It’s systemd, and you can do anything with it! (Kinda like zombo.com, I guess.)

That’ll happily reboot your Linux computer, all nice and neat and proper. It does exactly what you’d expect it to do, so there’s that.

Closure:

There you have it. You now have a few ways to reboot your Linux computer from the terminal. There are other ways, including init or whatnot. You can also just use the GUI if you’re working locally. It’s Linux. There are all sorts of ways to accomplish a given task. That’s a good thing.

I find myself rebooting from the terminal more often than not, simply because I’ve already got a terminal open and it’s just as quick for me to type the reboot command as it is for me to go clicking around. I’m also often testing other systems and really don’t want to have to go fishing around to find the command, then click on some sort of secondary agree menu or the likes.

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