Ubuntu: Up and Running

Chapter 8. Installing and Removing Software

If you’re used to Windows or OS X, you’re in for a pleasant surprise with Ubuntu because the developers have taken on the laborious task of assembling a collection of all the best software for the operating system.

Not only have they done that, it’s all been brought together into a single location called the Ubuntu Software Center; with just a few mouse clicks, you can install any of several thousand programs.

That’s right, you don’t have to go trawling the Web looking for a program you need, and then wade through pages of information about how to install it. That’s all a thing of the past with Ubuntu, as you’ll see in this chapter.

The Ubuntu Software Center

To open up the Ubuntu Software Center, select Applications → Ubuntu Software Center from the main menus. A new window will then open up that looks like the one shown in Figure 8-1.

The application is very easy to use. To add a new program to your computer, browse through the righthand departments to locate what you are looking for. For example, if you want to install a game of chess, select the Games department and you’ll see the program 3D Chess appears near the top, as shown in Figure 8-2.

At the bottom of the window, you can see that, on this occasion, there are actually 464 games listed, so there’s a good chance that other versions of chess are also available. To check this, you can scroll down using the scroll bar, the up and down cursor keys (once you have highlighted an item), or ...