[wplug] How to start downloaded packages (Unbuntu)

[Eric Cooper]

On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 02:37:22PM -0400, Tom Fetherston wrote:
> Using the Synaptic gooey to drive apt-get, I've downloaded a lot of 
> packages I've long been interested in playing with.  Now a few (very 
> few) go ahead and install themselves in the application menu, so they 
> are easy to start.  The others don't, which is fine, I'd rather arrange 
> things to my liking, not all the shortcuts and icons and registry junk 
> windows installers spread around.
> 
> So I figured that Synaptic put things in a directory where executables 
> are expected to be found and have a name that (somewhat) matches the 
> package name, therefore I should be able to open a terminal and just 
> type that name, crack a return and look at my new goodies.  Well, it 
> must be more complicated than that 'cause this isn't working.

Here's how to do it using the command line, in a terminal window:

Use "dpkg -L packagename" to see the contents of packagename
that you just installed.   If you just want to find the command(s) to
run, try (for example)
     dpkg -L lyx | grep bin/
Similarly, grepping for "doc/" or "man/" will point you to online
documentation.

There may be a graphical way to do what you want, but since I don't
use a graphical file manager, this is just a guess: try finding the
package you just downloaded in the .deb cache
(/var/cache/apt/archives/), and then double-click on it.  That will
probably provide a list similar to "dpkg -L".

BTW, another useful option is "dpkg -S filename", which tells you
which package installed a particular file on your system.

Finally, the "dlocate" package provides faster versions of both of
these dpkg commands, because it uses a database of all files on the
system.  The disadvantage is that the database is only updated daily,
by default, so you can't use it right after you've downloaded a new
package unless you first run update-dlocatedb.

-- 
Eric Cooper             e c c @ c m u . e d u