Return | Homepage | Floorplan | e-Mail
Adding Software to PCLinuxOS
The title of this page sound like something simple to accomplish. It can be a simple task, or it can be as complicated as you want it to be. One philosophy behind Linux is the ability to be able to add software from any source you wish. However, each distribution has its own set of repositories where software can be installed to that distribution. This is necessary to keep the distribution stable and trouble free. PCLinuxOS is no exception.
PCLinuxOS has only one repository for all installable software, and it is generally kept up to date. There are also numerous mirrors that replicate the repository.
The official policy regarding software installation and updating is simple: All software is to be installed and updated using only the Synaptic Package Manager. If there is a package you want to see that is not in the repository, simply request that package in the PCLinuxOS Forums.
While you can add third party software such as required proprietary drivers to get some devices working, and commercial applications such as Lotus Symphony (this is not the old DOS program of the same name, but rather a productivity suite built on OpenOffice.org), Texstar and others do not recommend you do so. This is because of potential and possible conflicts with the software provided in the official repository.
This does not mean you cannot add third party software to PCLinuxOS, or compile a source package for that matter.
For software packages such as Eclipse, which come in a tarball and are Java applications, I recommend installing these in an empty directory within your home directory. For example: ~/eclipse.
Traditionally, the /usr/local and /opt directories are ideal for third party software installation. This is true for PCLinuxOS with a few exceptions (notably the Acrobat Reader, OpenOffice.org, and LibreOffice, which always uses the /opt directory for installation, especially when they are installed from RPM packages).
The best place to install third party binaries is ~/bin. (Yes, you must create this directory from within your home directory, as ~/bin is not present after installing PCLinuxOS to your hard drive.)
By using /usr/local and ~/bin, you ensure that third party software will not interfere with your PCLinuxOS installation. If you choose to use /opt, check the contents of that directory to be sure there is not already a software package with the same name in the /opt directory so that your third party package installation does not conflict with anything in your PCLinuxOS installation.
Keeping PCLinuxOS Up To Date
There is only one official method to keeping PCLinuxOS up to date. You must be connected to the Internet when you do this as the procedure can involve large transfers of data from the Internet.
- Launch Synaptic Package Manager. You will need to supply the superuser (or administrator) password.
- Click on the Reload button. This refreshes the package lists Synaptic uses.
- Click on Select All Upgrades.
- Click on Apply to complete the process.
If you click on the Status button, you will see a listing in the sidebar within Synaptic. If New in Repository appears in the list, this means that new packages have been added to the PCLinuxOS repository. You may want to select this to see if you want to add the new packages to your installation.
PCLinuxOS Tip: If you really want the latest software from the PCLinuxOS repositories, you should donate at least $25.00 USD per year towards PCLinuxOS development. PCLinuxOS relies on donations to fund development, and donating financially will give you access to the Premium Access Software Server, where the latest versions of software packages for PCLinuxOS are stored. New packages and updates are available here first, before they are stored in the mirrors. This alone should be an incentive for anyone using PCLinuxOS to donate towards the distribution's development.
Why is this tip here? While PCLinuxOS may be free to download, install and maintain, it costs money to develop the distribution. Among costs are the hardware needed to develop the distribution, internet access, costs to access the servers to store the repositories, cost of electricity to operate the development facility, and of course costs normally associated with living. (We need to eat and sleep after all.)
Installing and Maintaining LibreOffice
LibreOffice is installed and maintained on PCLinuxOS by the LibreOffice manager, a script that automates the process of downloading the tarball containing RPM packages that make up the LibreOffice distribution. When LibreOffice is updated, you will be able to download an update of the LibreOffice manager (called lomanager in Synaptic).
LibreOffice Manager will check to see if the system has been updated properly before attempting to install and/or update LibreOffice. If there are uninstalled updates, you will be asked to update PCLinuxOS before you can install LibreOffice.
TeX/LaTeX Users: LibreOffice requires that Texlive be installed. This is because the TeX functionality (specifically the LaTeX import/export) was developed to work with Texlive.
Of course, you can manually install LibreOffice or OpenOffice.org.
I strongly suggest that you install at least a Java Runtime Environment on your PCLinuxOS installation before you proceed here. LibreOffice and OpenOffice require some version of Java be installed. The easiest way to do this is to launch Synaptic and install task-java, which can be found in the Tasks section of Synaptic. Click on Apply to install all the required files.
You will need to download at least the install tarball, and optionally, the helppack tarball, which contains documentation for the product. Once downloaded, the tarballs will be in the Downloads directory on your userspace (assuming you have not changed the default directory where files are downloaded in your web browser).
Next, create (or reuse) an empty directory and move the install tarball there. For the version 3.5.2 of LibreOffice, the following should appear after unpacking the tarball:
[patrick@localhost Packages]$ ls
LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US/
[patrick@localhost Packages]$
Now, change to the directory and look at its contents:
[patrick@localhost Packages]$ ls
LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US/
[patrick@localhost Packages]$ cd LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US/
[patrick@localhost LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US]$ ls
readmes/ RPMS/
[patrick@localhost LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US]$
Now, we change to the RPMS directory. Let us look at what is here.
[patrick@localhost RPMS]$ ls
desktop-integration/
This is a directory that contains RPMS that provide menu items that launch parts of LibreOffice. This is dependent on which Linux distribution you are installing LibreOffice.
libobasis3.5-base-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-binfilter-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-calc-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core01-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core02-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core03-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core04-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core05-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core06-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-core07-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-draw-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-base-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-calc-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-math-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-res-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-en-US-writer-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-beanshell-script-provider-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-javascript-script-provider-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-mediawiki-publisher-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-nlpsolver-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-pdf-import-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-presentation-minimizer-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-presenter-screen-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-python-script-provider-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-extension-report-builder-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-gnome-integration-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-graphicfilter-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-images-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-impress-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-javafilter-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-kde-integration-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-math-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-ogltrans-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-onlineupdate-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-ooofonts-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-ooolinguistic-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-postgresql-sdbc-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-pyuno-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-writer-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libobasis3.5-xsltfilter-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-base-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-calc-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-dict-en-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-dict-es-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-dict-fr-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-draw-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-en-US-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-impress-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-math-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-stdlibs-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-ure-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
libreoffice3.5-writer-3.5.1-102.i586.rpm
If you have downloaded OpenOffice.org, the listing will be similar to the above, but with one exception. OpenOffice.org contains a Java Runtime Environment package for those machines that do not already have a Java environment installed.
Next, login as the system administrator with the su command. You will be logged in to the account for the user root. You will need to go to your user home directory. To do that, type chdir /home/ followed by your username. On my laptop, for example, I would need to type in chdir /home/patrick to get to my user home directory.
For my example installation, I created a directory called Packages and moved the LibreOffice tarball there. So, I would type:
chdir /home/patrick/Packages/LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-rpm_en-US/RPMS
...and now we are ready to install the LibreOffice packages. To install, type in the following:
rpm -iv *.rpm
...and watch the screen as LibreOffice is being installed. The v stands for verbose, which means you get to see everything that is going on during the installation.
When rpm is finished, LibreOffice will then be installed. But, we are not done just yet! There is one more step in this process. I showed you a directory called desktop-integration. This contains RPM files that contain the necessary menu entries that allow you to launch parts of LibreOffice.
So, lets us change to that directory and look at its contents.
[patrick@localhost RPMS]$ cd desktop-integration/
[patrick@localhost desktop-integration]$ ls
libreoffice3.5-freedesktop-menus-3.5-102.noarch.rpm
libreoffice3.5-mandriva-menus-3.5-102.noarch.rpm
libreoffice3.5-suse-menus-3.5-102.noarch.rpm
[patrick@localhost desktop-integration]$
For PCLinuxOS, we must use libreoffice3.5-mandriva-menus-3.5-102.noarch.rpm. This is because the menuing system used by PCLinuxOS is the same as the system used by Mandriva and Mageia distributions. (If it is not broken, why fix it?) Hence, we need to type the following:
rpm -i libreoffice3.5-mandriva-menus-3.5-102.noarch.rpm
The freedesktop RPM package works with most other Linux distributions, including Slackware. The other RPM packages remain due to the way the menuing systems work.
