How-to: Installing new applications on Antix

[Member PPC]

Hi.
Congratulations on having tried/installed one of the best Operating Systems that consumes the least resources on your machine. Great for very old computers like mine.
antiX comes loaded with lots of applications. But what happens when you need an application that does not come with antiX out of the box?
Does the fact of using a low specs Operating System like antiX mean that you’r stuck with the applications it comes with? No. I’m not an expert and I’m aware there are several how-to’s on the site and all over the Net, But over the years I wrote down several notes to help me set up new applications. That’s what’s this is about. My aim is that this tutorial may come in handy to ease transition for people coming from Windows.

People, in recent years, got used to having an “AppStore”, Android and IOS devices have it. Some well known linux distros, like Ubuntu have it. Now Windows (since version 8, I guess) has one too (yeah, some Linux users got to have that first, take that MS 🙂 ).
Why not a single “Store” for everything? Beats me, I’m not a techie… But the reason is that there are several different ways that linux distributions (“distros” for short) use to install software, most of them incompatible with each other. So, no single “Appstore” for Linux.
Does antiX has an “AppStore”? Sort of… But not really. Here are your options to installing new software:

1-“Package Installer“- This is what that the most like an “AppStore”. It’s in Menu- Control Center- System- Package Installer (Sorry I’m using a non english system, but I belive that’s the correct english expression).
Yeah, that’s not very intuitive (if it was up to me I would up a link to it on the desktop), but it’s there. Once it opens, you have to type your password (demo is the default password for the live antiX system)
You have software/programs/applications available by type. You have a very good, but basic selection… Browsers like Chrome, Chromium and Opera are there, as is Java, Flash and pulseaudio (stuff that is usually a pain installing and configuring on many linux distros)… even a couple of games. Click the one you want and the system does everything for you and notifies you once it’s done. It opens a terminal windows. Don’t worry it won’t bite and you don’t have to do anything with it except typing y (or the equivalent letter for non english users to Ok the installation process)…
The main problem is that you don’t really have much offer of software/programs/applications here… So where to get more?

2-Synaptic– Newbies that are not used to the way many linux distros have to add new software may find Synaptic strange.
Synaptic has thousands of packets available for you to install, but it’s not as user friendly and the previous way. When you look for something there, you won’t only get the packet that corresponds to the application you want. You’ll see all the packets it needs to run or, simply packets that share the name that you searched on synaptic.
You can search for a word or a expression, and synaptic offers you the corresponding packets. The very good thing about it is that, like in an actual “Appstore” you don’t have to enter any command, it’s all done clicking your mouse. Synaptic automates everything for you: it usually downloads everything that the application needs to run (files called dependencies).
How to use Synapic: look for what you want to install on Synaptic. You can use the magnifying glass button for it (click it and type what you are looking for and a list matching that will appear). Select what you want. The system tells you if any what dependencies that app needs and tries to install everything. Mark them for instalation if that’s the case.
Click the “gears” button and confirm what you want to install. Synaptic really wants you to be fully informed about what you are doing, it tells you how many files you’ll download, how much space it’s going to take…
Wait for the install process to finish and when you get notified it’s done, fell free to close the window and exit synaptic. Your application is already installed. Look for it in the menu or run it from the terminal.

You can add new repositories, to add even more applications to the Synaptic database (for example, a VLC repository to have the latest VLC version, etc). Do it knowing that it may be risky and “break” your system. The repositories that come with antiX are the ones guaranteed to be 100% safe.

Example: If you want to install VLC media player with Synaptic click the magnifying glass button and type “VLC”. Loads of packets show up, not just the VLC application. It may be a bit strange if you are not used to it. But it’s really no big deal: scroll down, reading the packets discription if you want to learn a bit about how stuff works. Most times the package you want to install to get your application is just the one with exactly the name you want. In our case, scroll down to the “VLC” package, select it for instalation by left clicking the box next to it and choose “Mark for installation”, allow any dependecies it needs to be marked for installation. Click the “Gears” button and wait for the install process to finish. VLC will show up in your menu…

3-Installing Applications from files– Another way you can get new applications is search for them on-line, download and install them. This may be tricky… because, unlike on Windows or MacOS there are lots of ways of installing new applications (the following is a non compreensive list):

A)- AppImage applications– my prefered choice, after the previous two ways of installing applications. For me, it’s the simplest, more secure, way of adding applications to your system and being sure you don’t harm it (more on that bellow, on the topic about .Deb files)
Ever installed anything on a MacOS? I did it once, for a friend and it was strange. I had one single file. All I had to do was click it and it ran almost instantly, and was added to the system. What magic was this?
Well, using an AppImage it’s almost the same user experience. You can do it without using the terminal. Search on line for the AppImage you want (once again no good “Appstore” 🙁 , but https://bintray.com/probono/AppImages is a good place to start).
Download the application you want. Open it with your file manager. I use SpaceFM. Go to the folder where the file you downloaded is (usually “Downloads” :-)). Right click it. In the context menu that shows up the last option is “properties”. Put your mouse pointer over it and a new sub-menu appears: the second option is “permitions”. Left click it.
A new small window shows up. This identifies what several goups of users are allowed to do with the file, like “Read”, “Write”, “Execute”. It’s self-explanatory. Even if most Windows users don’t mess with that, the same options are available there… For security reasons, by default the “Execute” field is never selected for AppImage files. Select the first “Execute” box and click OK.
Now you can right click the Appimage file again and select Execute (it’s the first option from the menu).
Give it a few moments (depending on the Application size and your computer’s speed it may take a while or be instantaneous and the application starts running. It may even ask if you want to add it to the Menu and if the system should ask you that again, just like in a normal install. It’s up to you.
There are only 2 downsides to using AppImages: one is that, because the file includes almost every dependency it needs it may be veryyyy big… The other is that you have to allow the file to be executed only once, but you have to do it for every single AppĨmage file you download. At least it’s for a good cause: your computer’s security.
Appimage applications usually already come with the right versions of everything your application needs to run (i.e. their dependencies), so there’s no need to install anything else, and they’ll never “break” your system. The worst that can happen is an application refusing to run for some reason.
Most appimages are a bit (or very) old versions of the application (Chromium, for example has a version from 2016 there, it’s very fast and not very much memory hungry, but I’ll bet that’s not very secure now). Some, like LibreOffice include the latest version of the application, localized to your language!
You want to update your AppImage application? Download the new version, run it and feel free to delete the old one (you can have multiple versions of the same apps on your system this way, for example LibreOfficce 5 and 6 at the same time)

B)- FlatPak applications – it’s the same principle has “Appimage”. Your application comes in a single file that includes everything it needs to run.
Unlike Appimage, you have to install flatpak itself so you can install applications that come in flatpak format.
I only tried this out just to check out how it worked, I don’t really use it.
I was not aware of it until anticapitalista’s comment (thanks for that) that you should not use Flatpak under antiX because it depends on systemd that does not come out of the box with antiX. DO NOT INSTALL ANYHING USING FLATPAK.
In the case you are felling adventurous (or just in the future FlatPak ditches systemd), here’s how to use it:
Open Synaptic. Click the magnifying glass button. Type “flapak”. Select the package named… “flatpak” you guess it! Allow for any dependencies to be marked and install everything. You only have, of course, to do this once.
Not quite done. Follow the instructions on https://flatpak.org/setup/Debian/
Now you can install applications on Flatpak format. https://flatpak.org/ is a good place to look for applications. At the time I write this there are over 200 apps there (yeah, no google playstore, I know).
There’s probably an easier way to do this, but for test porpoises I download the Flatpak file I want (the flatpakref, really, it’s a small text file that tells Flatpak to download the correct file and install it with along with any other needed dependencies). Then use the terminal to install it with the command “flatpak install –system NameOfTheApplication.flatpakref”
Sorry, no examples, because you should not install anything with Flatpak 🙁

C) SNAP applications – another single file that usually contains everything the application needs to run. Like flatpak, you have to install Snapd it to be able to install Snap files. It was mainly used in Ubuntu, but some distros also began supporting it. It uses SystemD, something antiX does not, by default come with. There are work arounds to try to use snaps. You should not try installing anything via Snap on antiX. If you want you can read about the problems it has with antiX on https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/installing-and-running-snaps-without-systemd/3949

D)- Tar, Tar.gz or Tar.gz2 files- One way to explain this to a Windows user is like this: this are compressed files, like in ZIP or RAR format. You have to click them, and decompress them. Then, using your file manager, navigate your way trough the it’s folder and click and execute the executable file. Easy.
Do you want an example?
Let’s try geting the latest Firefox version:
-Go to https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=firefox-com
-Click the download button.
-Download the file. Notice that it’s name is something like FirefoxVersionNumber.tar.bz2
-After the download is done, if you used firefox, close all instances of Firefox running.
-Open your file manager, in my case SpaceFM. Go to the folder to where you downloaded the file, usually “Downloads”.
-Right click you file. this opens two menus- Open and Extract. Left click Extract. Wait for it to extract (usually a progress bar shows up on the bottom of SpaceFM)
-Now on your Downloads folder you have a new folder named something like FirefoxVersionNumber. Click it.
-It may have a new folder inside it with only the application name, “firefox” in our example. Click it again.
-Now you see lots of files and folders. It you are not already using it, switch options SpaceFM to view the file details. Some files are described as “executable”. Those are the ones you want (they are like the .Exe files from Windows). Click the “firefox” executable file. Wait for it to run. There, you can check it, now you have the latest version of firefox running.

There are positive and negative points on installing applications this way: on the positive side. It does not ever break your system. The most that could happen is that the application refuses to run because it does not have all the right dependencies. If so, tough luck. Wait for it to be available any other way or risk installing the dependencies using synaptic or any other way…
The negative side: this does not add any entry to the menu or icons to your bar or desktop. If you want to, you have to manually do that. It’s easy adding the application to your desktop. Just drag the executable “firefox” file to the desktop, like people do on Windows. That works an Antix 17.1 with Rox-ICEWM (Antix’s default desktop), it copies the executable file to the desktop, but you get an ugly “Gear” icon that you have to manually change.. 🙁
Sorry, I won’t get into details how to do that here, but i’ll give you a hint: right click the firefox “gear” icon that you just put on your desktop. One option is something like “Firefox File”. Put your mouse pointer over it and you’ll get a option that says something like “Set Icon”.Left click it. A new window shows up. Pay real attention and make sure you select the second option that sets the icon only to this executable file, not all executable files on your computer (I never done that, I have no way of telling you how to revert that). Leave this small window open. Open Spacefm and go to the your Firefox folder. For Firefox 59.x, click your way to browser/chrome/icons/default. There’ll see several icon files. Drag one to the “Set icon” window that’s on your desktop (I choose the default48.pcx file). Done. Yeah, more complex than on Windows but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do it… And Ups, I showed you how to set the right icon…Damn!

E)- .Deb applications- Once again I’m assuming that if you are reading this, you do not want to use the terminal/command lin/CLI. No problem. There are ways of installing Deb files using the graphical interface.
What are Deb files? Deb is the format that the Debian and it’s derivative OS’s, like Antix, use to install applications.
It’s the equivalent of a .MSI file on windows. All you have to do is to click the file you want and it should install.
When you use Synaptic, it’s really downloading, installing and configuring deb files related to the application you choosed.
Using Deb files is doing a more “manual” install than using Synaptic. Why risk doing it then? Well, the Deb files Synaptic uses are stored on-line on Repositories (Repo’s for short). Usually people that maintain a linux distro, like antiX try out the new applications to be sure there isn’t anything wrong with them running in their particular OS, that they can’t “break” your system. But this may take a long time or never happen at all.
Installing applications in this “manual” way may “break” your system! [Read anticapitalista’s on that, on his reply below] but usually if it goes wrong the worst than can happen is the application not running because of dependency problems…
So, if you are sure you trust that the application you want to install wont break your system and you need it, download it’s .deb file and install it.
How to do it?
First you have to be sure your Antix system has a graphical application that allows you to install Deb files.
The application you want is called “Gebi”. Look for it on Synaptic. If it’s not already installed, install it. Mark any dependencies it may need to run and wait for it to install.
Now get (example: download) and install the Deb file you want.
Do you want an example how to to it? Let’s try the latest Google Chrome version…
Side note1: My example, Chrome, has dependencies that need to be installed (on antiX 17.1 it needs the fonts-liberation package, but it runs fine without it). My advice is install Chrome from the Control Center first, no problems if that’s an older version. that will solve those dependency problems. Then install from the Deb file you want.
-Go to https://www.google.com/chrome/
-check if the selected version it’s the Deb (and not the rpm) and click the “download chrome” button then click the “Accept and install” button.
-Download the file
-Open your file manager, in my case SpaceFM. Go to the folder to where you downloaded the file, usually “Downloads”.
-Right click you file. Choose Open – Package Installer.
-Gdebi opens up your deb file. Click the “Install Package” button and wait for it to install.
-the latest Google Chrome version is now installed and should show up on the menu!
-Notice this particularity: because there is one dependency missing, Synaptic will warn you that you have one broken package and try to keep your system safe by deleting the Chrome version you installed!

Side note2: do you want to keep your system light and even so install Deb files? Use the terminal.
Open the folder to where you download your deb file with SpaceFM. Press the F4 key. The terminal opens up. It won’t bite you. It’s just a black window with white letters with the power to erase everthing on your hard drive :-).
The command you have to type looks like an alien language: sudo dpkg -i NameOfTheApplication.deb
In our example type the correct command is): sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
You’ll probably have to enter your password. Once again, you may have dependency problems. When it’s done, feel free to close the terminal window.
Neither Gdebi or dpkg will install any dependencies the application needs to run, they just install the application itself. Use the Control Center or Synaptic to be really sure you don’t ever have problems with applications or break your system.

F)- RPM applications. RPM are the equivalent of Deb files, but for other non Debian/Debian derivative Operating Systems. You can install a application called Alien from Synaptic and try to convert/install any Deb file you want to install RPM files. My advice is, don’t do it, unless you really have to.

G)- Compiling the application you need- once again, if you are reading this, it’s not for you.
This options is also available on Windows. It uses the source code of the application to build it from the ground up. It may take a long time to do that. I’m not a techie, this is not for me too 🙂

H)- Installing Windows Applications with WINE
This is most Linux’s new users holy grail. People are used to using MS OFFICE or need to use Adobe Premier or whatever.
To some extent you can do this, running Windows applications, I mean. Trying it won’t (to my experience) ever break your system. The worst than can happen is that the application crashes or refuses to run. If it messes up your system, just reboot, no permanent harm done (been there, done that).
This can be done using something called “WINE” (yeah Linux guys love giving applications very strange names, like WINE, Gimp, Gnome MPV, antiX 🙂 ).
WINE is not an emulator, it’s a compatibility layer.
Once again, install “WINE” from Synaptic. Then open up the .EXE file or .MSI file you want to install on your file browser, click it and run it. Some stuff, like very old small games used to run faster on WINE than on my Windows XP copy, on the same hardware. True story!
Most Windows applications won’t run under Wine. Older versions of MS Office seem to be able to install and run fine. I’ve never done that but I used MS’s Powerpoint Viewer and Word Viewer flawlessly. The last time I tried Windows portable apps don’t seem to run under WINE.
Google and read about running stuff on WINE of you want to… There are loads of tutorials about it.

Done!

• This topic was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by PPC.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by PPC.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by PPC.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Many thanks PPC.

3 points.

1. Do not install debs from any random or even official looking site like Ubuntu ppas.
They are almost certainly going to break your install

2. Appimages are a great way to test/use newer versions of apps that are not in the default repos eg libreoffice6.
Avoid flatpaks and snaps since both require systemd and/or libsystemd0

3. It’s antiX not Antix.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member PPC]

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Thanks for your reply, anticapitalista. I belive I edited all the wrong references to antiX from my post. I didn’t knew that about flatpak (I was under the impression I got a reply a while ago about a LibreOffice flatpak instalation on antiX, that’s why I researched it),
My “how-to” advised people about the risks that installing a deb file has, but I got even more detailed about that after your post. Do you think it’s safe to mention https://packages.debian.org as a safe place to get deb files or does using a deb file made for Jessie (in case of my antiX 16.2 install) has any risk of breaking my system? If so, I can add the correct links to my post, refering to what packages.debian.org link people with antiX 17 or 16.2 should use…

P.S.- I never directly got to tell you that, anticapitalista, but I want publicly to thank you. antiX literally changed the way I work at my office. On my old netbook (about 8 years old, 1 gig ram, atom single core) I use connected a monitor and external keyboard and mouse as main PC, I can work (almost) as well as I do when I use brand new Windows boxes! (Before I started used antiX, I used Xubuntu, and had to reboot usually 2-3 times a day).

PPC

[Member wildstar84]

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You forgot the “last resort” & most complicated, but most optimized and Linux/Unixey way!:

Download "tarball" (App.tar.bz2 / App.tar.gz)
$>tar xf App.tar..
$>cd App
vi README && vi INSTALL  #(to see what "libxxx-dev" packages you need to install)
$>export CFLAGS="-march=native"
$>export CDDFLAGS="-march=native"
$>./configure --prefix=/usr/local     #Keep your custom-compiled app separate from the system's apps.
[do "Sign of the cross" and cross your fingers behind your back]
$>make
If errors:
   -- fetch any "libxxx-dev" you/they forgot (if it complains).
   $>make   #again after fixing it's complaints, if any.
Endif
$>sudo make install
Enjoy your shiny new app compiled and optimized for your hardware!

Cheers! 😀

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by wildstar84.

[Member PPC]

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*Edit (July 2019):
There’s a couple of changes to this “how to”:

1- Probably the most important change: “Versions of Flatpak before 0.6.10 relied on systemd for cgroups setup, but this is no longer required”. This means that you can probably install flatpak (version 0.6.10 or later) and then install flatpak apps.
I didn’t get to test this with antiX. I did manage to install the flatpak Debian package, but every time I wanted to install a flatpak app for testing, it wanted to download hundreds of megs of dependencies. So, appimage is still my preferred way to test apps that are not on the official repositories… (on a positive note, there are 3 big platform independent formats: Appimage, flatpak and snap, and now antiX supports 2 out of 3 of these formats)

2- If you want to install appimages or flatpaks, you may want to take a look at https://linuxappstore.io/ – it offers about 4000 applications in appimage, flatpak and also snap formats (DON’T TRY THOSE!!!). It’s still work in progress.
For even more appimages you can go to https://appimage.github.io/ (at this time it has over 900 apps in appimage format there, not a jaw dropping number, but a good start).

3- antiX now comes pre-installed with gdebi– if you want to install a “reliable” .deb file (meant for antiX or pure Debian without systemd dependencies), you can do it via GUI, for example, using the file manager SpaceFm, right click the .deb file and choose “gdebi”, and it installs in a fully GUI way, out of the box…

4- Many users coming from other non Linux operating systems complain about Microsoft Office does not have a version for Linux. That’s still true. But Office 365 on-line runs quite well on any modern browser, even on Linux. But it has less resources and is slower than a native application. there are some reports on winehq about people installing and running Office 365 using wine using some tweaks… It’s not meant for newbies, but you can try doing that, if you are a intermediate to advanced user, or simply don’t fear trying new stuff on your computer… Note: I have not tried installing Ms Office on any Linux OS in recent years. But I had MS Word and Power point viewers running fine in Xubuntu a couple of years ago…
My advice? Try the latest version of LibreOffice and test your documents compatibility. You can also try WPS (it’s a free but not opensource Chinese Office Suite) or other office suits. WPS seems, to me, to be the most compatible with .docx files. If you have to, try using MS Office on-line.
If nothing else works for you: try installing MS Office via wine, use a MS Windows virtual machine or, the simplest way- use via dual boot (if you can run Windows/Mac Os on your computer) and use your Office suite in that OS…

5- Gamming– now Steam has Proton available- it’s a kind of fork of Wine that allows Linux users to install and run games made for MS Windows- it seems to work with literally THOUSANDS of Windows games, even recent ones.
This means that if want to install games in antiX all you have to do is install Steam from the Control Centre (and if you need to activate Proton, just follow the instructions), and then install any compatible game you want, and enjoy…

P.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by PPC.

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