Installing New Software

To install new softare, you can use aptitude. Aptitude is an application that makes installing and removing software packages easy.

Open a terminal and type sudo aptitude, to start aptitude as root. Aptitude is started and should look like this:

As an example, we'll install figlet, a small ascii art text banner generator. To find figlet in aptitude, type / (slash). A search form appears.

Type figlet and press ENTER. You wil see figlet listed, selected by a white bar. In front of the name of the package, is a letter. The letter i means it is already included, p means it is not installed yet.

Press + (shift plus) to select the package for installing. The package listing turns green.

Type g to start the installation. You see an overview of what aptitude plans to do when you execute the installation. Purple packages will be removed, green ones will be installed. Type g again to execute the installation. When the installation is finished, aptitude prompts you with press any key to continue. After that you return to the first screen of aptitude.

To quit aptitude, type q

To test if your installation of figlet was successful, in a terminal type:

   figlet it worked!

This should have the following stunning result: