Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Installing and Uninstalling Software
he default software installed with the Debian distribution is enough to get you started, but
chances are you're going to want to customise your Pi according to your own requirements.
Installing new software onto the Pi is simple. he Debian distribution includes a tool called
apt
, which is a powerful
package manager
. Packages are what Linux calls a piece of software,
or a collection of diferent pieces of software designed to work together.
Although
apt
is designed to be operated from the command line, it's very user-friendly and
easy to learn. here are GUIs for
apt
, such as the popular Synaptic Package Manager, but
they often struggle to run on the Pi due to the lack of memory. As a result, we recommend
that software be installed at the terminal.
Other Distributions
Debian, and distributions based on Debian, typically use
apt
as the package manager. It's
not the only tool out there, and other distributions make different choices. Fedora Remix,
for example, uses the
pacman
tool.
Pacman
is no more dificult to use than
apt
, but its syntax (the way it expects you to phrase
instructions to install new software or remove existing software) is different. For instructions
on how to use
pacman
instead of
apt
, type
man pacman
at the Fedora Remix terminal.
Other distributions may use the
yum
package manager. If you're trying a distribution that
uses
yum
, simply type
man yum
at the terminal for instructions.
A package manager's job is to keep track of all the software installed on the system. It doesn't
just install new software—it also keeps tabs on what is currently installed, allows old soft-
ware to be removed and installs updates as they become available.
Package management is one of the areas where Linux difers greatly from operating systems
like Windows or OS X. Although it's possible to manually download new software to install,
it's far more common to use the built-in package management tools instead.
Before trying to install new software or upgrade existing software, you need to make sure
the
apt
cache
is up to date. To do this, simply type the command
sudo apt-get update
.
TIP
