For those users who do not want to bother with commands, but still need to re-configure certain packages, there is a front end called gkDebconf that can be used to easily reconfigure those already installed packages. Let’s see how to install and use this tool.

Installation

Since gkDebconf is found in the standard repositories, installation is very simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Open up the Ubuntu Software Center.
2. Search for “gkdebconf” (No quotes).
3. Click the Install button.
4. Enter your sudo password when prompted.
5. When the installation is complete, close the Software Center.

Once installed, you will find the application in System > Administration > gkDebconf.

Usage

Figure 1

One of the problems with starting the tool from the menu is that it will not ask you for your sudo password, therefore you will not have administrative access. For some of the package re-configuration (such as MySQL) you must have admin access. So if you are reconfiguring a package that you know requires admin access, start gkDebconf from the command line. To do this open up a terminal window and issue the command sudo gkdebconf. When this command is issued the main window for gkDebconf will open (see Figure 1) where you can locate the package you want to reconfigure.

As you can see there are numerous packages available to you. I am illustrating the MySQl-server package as that is the package that I get the most questions regarding re-configuring.

Figure 1

So to run the re-configuration process select the package you want to reconfigure and click the Configure button. When you do this a new window will open, that window being the debconf configuration window for the package in question (see Figure 2). In my example you can see the first step is asking you for the MySQL root user password. If you have already installed this package, you will have already walked through this wizard so it will be very familiar.

Some of the more important applications you can reconfigure include:

• adduser
• apparmor
• cups
• gdm
• openssh-server
• quota
• Samba
• Snort

For those who would like to to do this same task from the command line, you can use the dpkg-reconfigure like so:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure APPLICATION

Where APPLICATION is the package you want to reconfigure. So if you want to reconfigure Samba you would issue the command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure samba

Final thoughts

Although the task isn’t too challenging to handle from the command line, it’s always nice to not have to guess the name of the package you want to configure (remember, Linux is very case-sensitive, so MySQL is not mysql). gkDebconf makes this task much easier.

We all know how simple it is to install downloaded applications on the Windows platform. What would you say if I told you it was just as easy to install a downloaded application on the Linux platform? And not just on Ubuntu…but on other Linux distributions. Would you be surprised? Would you be in disbelief? Well, for those disbelievers I have the proof for you today. In this article I will show you how to install downloaded applications, in Linux, with a double click.

What this applies to

Before you think this is going to show you how to install an application from source with a double click, think again. This will only apply to the packages created for a systems package manager. What that means is you can install .deb files in an apt-based (or dpkg-based) system (such as Ubuntu) or .rpm files in an RPM-based system (such as Fedora). If you are wanting to install from source, you will have to employ the command line tool. For the rest…you are just a double click away from installation goodness.

The dependency issue

There can, of course, be issues with this installation. The biggest issue will be dependencies. If a file you are attempting to install has unmet dependencies it will not install. When this happens you can try to meet those dependencies by using your Add/Remove Software tool. Or you can attempt to download the dependency files (after googling them and finding the right version) and install in the same way you are going to install the main application. This is one of the many reasons why it is always best to use your package management system. There are, of course, times when you need a package installed that it not in your package management system and there are no repositories for that tool. That is when this method will come into play.

How it works

Believe it or not, it works in much the same way as it does on the Windows  platform. Let’s see just how this works. I am going to install a package (one that I will writing about very soon) called Hot Copy. For that tool I have downloaded the .zip file (which contains binaries in both .deb and .rpm format. That file will have downloaded to my ~/Downloads directory. Here are the steps for installation (I will be explaining this from the GNOME desktop).

Step 1

Open up Nautilus to the ~/Downloads directory. In this directory you will see the .zip file you downloaded.

Figure 1

Step 2

Double click on the newly downloaded file. This will open up the archive file to display all of the contents. In the case of this file there will be two directories and a help file. The two directories will be for each of the different hardware architecture (x86 for 32 bit systems and x86_64 for 64 bit systems). Double click on the directory for your machines architecture to reveal the included installation files (see Figure 1).

Step 3

Figure 2

For the Ubuntu installation I am going to install both .deb files in this package. First I will double click the hotcopy .deb file. When I do this it will open up the GDebi package installation tool. When this new window opens (see Figure 2)  all I have to do is click the Install package buttton. GDebi will ask for the users password to complete the installation. You might recognize GDebi from any time you have downloaded a .deb file from the web. it’s the same routine.

When the installation is complete GDebi will report the installation is finished and you can then close the progress window and then close the GDebi window.

That’s it. And, believe it or not, the process is pretty much the same on the Fedora distribution as well.

Final thoughts

I bet you never thought installation applications in Linux was this easy. Well, Linux has come a long, long way since the early days when the command line was a requirement. Now, it seems, the command line is only an option. Although I can’t imagine myself using Linux without the command line (it’s how I was taught after all), it is completely possible to do so.

Well, there’s a handy tool that will take care of all of that for you. The tool is called APTonCD. What this tool does is create a CD with all of the applications you have installed – basically a portable repository. And, with the same tool, you can restore all of the packages on the CD – all from one convenient GUI.

Features

Choose specific packages on your local machine (or choose all).

Download entire repositories.

Burn CD/DVD from within APTonCD.

Create and restore from same GUI.

Auto-selection of dependencies option.

Easy to use.

Installation

The installation is simple:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software Application.
2. Enter “aptoncd” in the search bar (no quotes).
3. Mark APTonCD for installation.
4. Click Apply.

Once the installation is complete you can close out the installation tool and get ready to use APTonCD.

Starting and using APTonCD

Figure 1

Once installed APTonCD is found in the Administration sub-menu of the System menu (GNOME desktop). Figure 1 shows the main window for the application. From this window you can either create a new CD or restore from an already existing CD.

To create a new CD click the Create button which will open up another window. In this new window (see Figure 2) the packages will be collected and, eventually, listed out for you. From this listing you can select the packages you want to include on your CD. By default all of the packages are selected.This window will also includ the total size of the completed installation. As you can see (in Figure 2) the total size of my restore CD will be 596 MB (some of the packages are not selected).

Figure 2

If you want to add packages not already on your system you can click the Add drop down and select either Packages or Folder and then navigate to those files/folders. You can also open up Nautilus and drag and drop packages into the APTonCD window.

Once you have selected all of your packages you might want to go to the Edit menu and select “Auto-select Dependencies” to ensure all dependencies are met on your CD. Now it’s time to burn. When you’re ready click the Burn button which will open up a Disc Properties window (see Figure 3). In this new window you select your medium, the destination for the image file, a file name, and whether or not you want to create a meta-package. The meta-package is one package that

Figure 3

includes all packages on the CD as dependencies. This makes restoration very simple in that all APTonCD has to do is select one package to install.

When you click Apply APTonCD will begin to create the .iso image that you will then burn onto disk using your favorite CD burning software.

When the iso has been created a new window will open asking if you want to burn the CD/DVD. This window will allow you to select that application you want to burn with. If you chose you can click No and burn the CD/DVD later. I have found the burn portion of the APTonCD to be a bit flaky, so I just always burn by open up K3B and burning the image.

Restoring

I would like to say that APTonCD can easily handle the installation of your packages with a simple click of a button. It can not. What APTon CD does is create portable repositories. So you can use the APTonCD restore option to basically add your CD repository for installation.  I have found, however, the best way to install the entirety of the packages is with the tried and true command line. This allows you to quickly get all of your packages installed with a couple of easy commands. What you will want to do is this:

1. Insert your CD/DVD created by APTonCD.
2. Open up a command line.
3. Change to the directory where you CD is located with the command cd /media/cdrom (Note: Your CD might be located in a different directory).
4. Change into the packages directory with the command cd packages.
5. Issue the command sudo dpkg -i *deb which will install all packages on the CD.
6. After the installation is complete you MIGHT have to use Syanptic in the event their are broken packages.

Close out the command prompt and check your Applications menu, you should be good to go.

Final thoughts

I hope that the developers of APTonCD will some day make it much easier to restore from the GUI. But even with the inconvenience of having to use the command line for quick restoration, APTonCD is a very handy tool.