Sunday, May 20, 2012

A great tool for installing packages for Ubuntu

If you use Ubuntu 12.04, you know that you open local .deb packages in the Ubuntu Software Center. Well if you use 10.04, you had another tool you can use...GDebi package installer.


GDebi is a very lightweight package installer. It opens within 5 seconds, if not faster. You do not have to open the Ubuntu Software Center, which takes longer to load, and is rather slow. Not to say that Ubuntu Software Center doesn't do the job, it does, but this is a faster alternative.


So here is some screenshots that I took when I was in Ubuntu, which I finally installed via a partition instead of a virtual disk file in Windows. Due to that, Ubuntu is safe from Windows, is faster because it used EXT4 (With NTFS it has a high risk of getting fragmented very quickly).
Here is GDebi open with no packages selected. You can't really do nothing with no package selected. If you are wondering where the menu is, you have to hover where the app name is at bar at the top of the screen (unity-2d-panel if you are wondering what process that is, because I am running Unity 2D due to my hardware).

Here I have selected the Google Chrome package (google-chrome-stable for those who are wondering). Since it is already installed, it says that I can download the package again, reinstall it, or remove it. If  nothing is installed yet, you will just see a Install Package button
If you are interested in getting this, you can install two ways. You can either get it through a terminal command, or install via the Ubuntu Software Center.


If you are choosing the terminal method, type in the following code:
sudo apt-get install gdebi


If you choose to use the Ubuntu Software Center, click on the logo that looks like a shopping bag on your launcher, or search for it in the dash by clicking the Ubuntu logo at the top left, then typing in "software center". Once the Software Center is open, click the search box at the top right if it is not already selected, then type in "gdebi". It should be the first option. Select it, then click install.


Insert your password for the terminal or the software center, then you are good to go. You have now installed GDebi.


How to make .deb packages open with GDebi by default
If you want to make GDebi open packages by default, instead of the Software Center, then follow these steps:

  1. Right Click on may package
  2. Select properties
  3. Navigate to opens with
  4. select GDebi
  5. Choose set as default at the bottom of the window
And now you are set. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any further questions or comments, post in the comments below.

If you want to know how you uninstall, you can either go to the Software Center, search for GDebi again, then select uninstall, or run sudo apt-get remove gdebi from a terminal.