Discussion of software that is not included in Ubuntu

[crackers_altitude]

I’ve found some interesting software (pygears, anaconda, pythonoce, pythonocc, etc.) which is generally not included with Ubuntu. However, I’d be interested to discuss the installation of this software with Ubuntu users - since I’ve tried this on my own, and I seem to have made a mess. This is partly because it seems, though the software is available ( e.g. on github), it is not clear how robust the discussion groups are for this software.

I can see that the software discussion on Ubuntu Forums appears to be limited to, interestingly - wine, but also in general multimedia software, or that which is packaged in Ubuntu in the first place. So, I had to ask - perhaps there are a few users out there who could help me get the software of interest up and running with apt, snap, etc.

thanks for the guidance as usual.

[Frogs Hair]

Not a specific support request moved to UL&OS Chat.

[TheFu]

Every non-packaged software should have an INSTALL or README file which explains how to set it up. How that happens, that depends on the specific project, languages involved, complexity.

Key things for someone new to know.
* installs of non-packaged software require manually maintenance by you, the admin. That means extra work and it is best to avoid it, if possible by using pretty much any other method. Normal repo, PPA, snap, flatpak, ... anything except source.
* Install software manually to either /usr/local/ or somewhere in your HOME.

There are no limits about software installation discussions here, provided they aren't about hacking tools. Anything else goes as far as I know.

Just consider the sort of software that you find interesting may not be all that interesting to others. Happens to me all the time, but you'll never know until you post. Pick a good title, put the software title at the beginning so it doesn't get cut off, definitely say the release number, and DE being used if it is desktop/GUI software.

Going with source code means that dependency management is a manual process, further complicating the required, manual, maintenance. Doing it wrong can easily make for a mess, as you say.

Using software off source-code sites is beyond typical end-users. Really it is mainly developers who would go that direction, so non-developers aren't likely to join a conversation.

[Artim]

I usually hate PPAs, but I use one to get and maintain the Seamonkey Suite. It has thousands fewer lines of code than Firefox, yet it does what both Firefox and Thunderbird do!

[hk42]

Ubuntu being quite popular very often the site of the new program
has a tutorial on how to install it "over" a ubuntu version.
Sometimes it is a good occasion to update your ubuntu.
or to make a backup of it.
I also find that appimage versions of programs are very handy.

[HermanAB]

As explained above, read the README and INSTALL files. Check the 'makefile' to see whether it includes BOTH 'install' and 'uninstall' options. If 'uninstall' is not included, then the software is probably best avoided, since that indicates a cowboy attitude on the part of the project maintainers. It is also best to experiment in a virtual machine, so that you don't mess up your main system.

[hk42]

I usually hate PPAs, but I use one to get and maintain the Seamonkey Suite. It has thousands fewer lines of code than Firefox, yet it does what both Firefox and Thunderbird do!

Hi
Inspired by your message I tried Seamonkey from their website and all went well
with just extracting the archive in the /usr/local directory.
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/do...#install_linux
The only problem I had is that when testing I ended in a perfectly working Youtube full screen page
and could not find any way to get out of it.
Had to resort to Ctrl/Halt/Del to log out.
Thanks for the idea anyway.

[CatKiller]

For software whose build instructions end with "make install" checkinstall is a useful substitute. It creates a package out of all the files that make wants to install, and then installs that package instead; meaning that can be uninstalled with your normal package manager.

[kevdog]

In my limited experience installing packages either with make install, checkinstall -- the install process works great but the uninstall process usually leaves a lot of packages and files behind. Honestly its really annoying.

I'd second the advice of trying the installation within a virtual machine. VMs are so easy to create and use.

[mastablasta]

so sad that with all options that were made available in the past few years (appimage, flatpack, snap, portable binaries) and some older ones that are not distro agnostic (PPA, repositories) we still have stuff that comes in source only.