Beginner's question.

[Jane]

I'm not actually a beginner but I'm sure plenty who are have come across
this problem many times...and I cannot find an explanation anywhere.

After installing packages with software manager, some open up
immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.

One would think that such an elementary operation would be one of the
first things that would be explained but it never seems to get a
mention. Why not?

I'm using Mint 19 and 20.1 at present.

[David W. Hodgins]

On Fri, 06 Aug 2021 19:09:43 -0400, Jane <J...@home.com> wrote:

> I'm not actually a beginner but I'm sure plenty who are have come across
> this problem many times...and I cannot find an explanation anywhere.

I don't use mint, so don't know which package manager it uses.

> After installing packages with software manager, some open up
> immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
> disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
> them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.

Some package managers allow filtering the list of available packages to only show
the packages that have a gui interface. Without such a filter, many of the packages
shown will be packages that include nothing but library modules, that are needed
for other packages to work. There are also many that only include commands that
run from the command line, like grep.

I've never encountered a package that shows a gui icon on the desktop or opens,
simply by installing it. Such a package would not seem appropriate in a multi user
system like linux. Being added to the menu is normal, not the desktop.

> One would think that such an elementary operation would be one of the
> first things that would be explained but it never seems to get a
> mention. Why not?
> I'm using Mint 19 and 20.1 at present.

I'm using Mageia. The packages are in the rpm format. The rpm command has an
option to show the list of files in the package. Filtering that through grep, it's
easy to find the command or menu file. For example ...
$ rpm -q -l thunderbird|grep bin/
/usr/bin/thunderbird
[dave@x3 ~]$ rpm -q -l thunderbird|grep desktop
/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop
$ grep ^Categories /usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop
Categories=GTK;Network;News;Email;X-Mageia-CrossDesktop;

The above shows that thunderbird can be started either from the command line,
or from the menu in one (or more depending on how the menu has been setup) of
the listed categories. That menu entry can be used to add an icon to start the
program to the desktop or panel.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

--
Change dwho...@nomail.afraid.org to davidw...@teksavvy.com for
email replies.

[The Natural Philosopher]

they should appear in the mint main menu, and can be linked to desktop
or other menu bar icons with a right click IIRC

--
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de
Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de
M. de Voltaire

[Jim Jackson]

Don't you have some sort of applications/software menu system in mint?
If so after an application gets installed, then it will insert an entry
in that menu. Often there is entry in a task bar to bring up this menu.

[John-Paul Stewart]

On 2021-08-08 1:01 p.m., Jim Jackson wrote:
> On 2021-08-06, Jane <J...@home.com> wrote:
>> I'm not actually a beginner but I'm sure plenty who are have come across
>> this problem many times...and I cannot find an explanation anywhere.
>>
>> After installing packages with software manager, some open up
>> immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
>> disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
>> them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.

[snip]

> Don't you have some sort of applications/software menu system in mint?
> If so after an application gets installed, then it will insert an entry
> in that menu.

Only for GUI applications. Command line applications will not have a
menu entry and will need to be launched in a terminal. You will need to
know the command name(s) for that, and there is not necessarily a
correlation to the package name. ImageMagick is an example of that. It
is purely command line but no command of that name is installed. It is
made up of several commands such as 'convert', 'display', 'montage', and
others.

So I can see how the OP might think certain newly installed command line
programs would "just seem to disappear" since there is neither an icon
nor a command line program of the same name. But they are there under
other names.

Also, some administrative programs (typically on the command line, too)
are only in root's $PATH, not a normal user's. So those, too, might
"just seem to disappear" from the perspective of an ordinary user account.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 08/08/2021 21.46, John-Paul Stewart wrote:
> On 2021-08-08 1:01 p.m., Jim Jackson wrote:
>> On 2021-08-06, Jane <J...@home.com> wrote:
>>> I'm not actually a beginner but I'm sure plenty who are have come across
>>> this problem many times...and I cannot find an explanation anywhere.
>>>
>>> After installing packages with software manager, some open up
>>> immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
>>> disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
>>> them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.
> [snip]
>> Don't you have some sort of applications/software menu system in mint?
>> If so after an application gets installed, then it will insert an entry
>> in that menu.
>
> Only for GUI applications. Command line applications will not have a
> menu entry and will need to be launched in a terminal. You will need to
> know the command name(s) for that, and there is not necessarily a
> correlation to the package name. ImageMagick is an example of that. It
> is purely command line but no command of that name is installed. It is
> made up of several commands such as 'convert', 'display', 'montage', and
> others.

Yes. But there is "man ImageMagick"


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Jim Jackson]

>>> After installing packages with software manager, some open up
>>> immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
>>> disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
>>> them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.
> [snip]
>> Don't you have some sort of applications/software menu system in mint?
>> If so after an application gets installed, then it will insert an entry
>> in that menu.
>
> Only for GUI applications. Command line applications will not have a
> menu entry and will need to be launched in a terminal.

My assumption in answering - and it was lazy of me, I'm sorry - was that
a CLI adept would not be asking such a question.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 08/08/2021 11:11, Bud Frede wrote:
> I don't think I've ever seen a package on Linux that opens as a result
> of having installed it either.
>
> I could see one perhaps putting an icon on the desktop or icon bar
> though, depending upon the desktop environment. I use Mint MATE and it
> doesn't do that though. Perhaps Cinnamon does?

Mint MATE almost always puts a *user level GUI* based package in the
mint menu system.

From there is is trivial to add a desk-top icon or custom menu item.
But I have never known it add an icon to the desktop by default

Only the initial installation does that.

--
"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes, there is.


--
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign,
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

Jonathan Swift.

[Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood]

Groovy hepcat David W. Hodgins was jivin' in comp.os.linux.misc on Sat,
7 Aug 2021 10:31 am. It's a cool scene! Dig it.

> On Fri, 06 Aug 2021 19:09:43 -0400, Jane <J...@home.com> wrote:

This is to the OP. (Sorry, I don't see your post; only other people's
followups.)

>> I'm not actually a beginner but I'm sure plenty who are have come
>> across this problem many times...and I cannot find an explanation
>> anywhere.
>
> I don't use mint, so don't know which package manager it uses.
>
>> After installing packages with software manager, some open up
>> immediately, others are accompanied by an icon but many just seem to
>> disappear. They are installed but there appears to be no way to run
>> them. I have tried terminal and package manager to no avail.

Software Manager is just a front end to the apt package management
system. You could use tools provided by apt and dpkg (a backend used by
apt) to find information on installed packages.
If you know the actual package name (not the name/description in
Software Manager), you can use the dpkg-query command to find out more
about it, including what files are installed. You can then find out the
names of an installed program. Try this:

sudo dpkg-query -L packagename

If you don't know the package name, you can try looking at history.*
files in /var/log/apt/ to see what was recently installed. Or, if you
have a general idea but don't know exactly, you could try the apt-cache
command to search for a package:

sudo apt-cache search softwarename

Another option is to run synaptic and use it to search for the name of
the software you've installed. It has a tab that shows installed files.

--


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Ain't I'm a dawg!!

[Jane]

I'm surprised that anyone would use any version other than mint. It
saves a lot of time.... brilliant...
Most of the popular programs such as filezilla or KolourPaint install an
icon in the main menu but the majority do not....and invariably, typing
their name in terminal does not open t open thehinghem. There is no
advice as to how it should be done.

[Carlos E. R.]

That is not privative to Mint.


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[The Natural Philosopher]

MOST menu items cam be right clicked for an 'add to panel' or add to
desktop' icon to be created in MATE at least.

But I query your 'majority do not': Essentially programs that are
maintained by MINT will install as expected - its the ones that 'work'
but are not 'integrated' that cause issues.

There you need to find out what command DOES start the code and make
your own desktop icon or menu entry or panel entry

Finding the command is down to various techniques.
dpkg -L PACKAGENAME
will list the files in a PACKAGE. One of them should be the main executable.

For instance. Or sometimes a quick google reveals what te designer chose
to call the main program
>


--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent
renewable energy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

English not your first language? I think we would say 'particular to'
or 'only restricted to' ...

Which is a pity. Privative is a neat way to say it if it was an english word


--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly

[Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood]

Groovy hepcat Bud Frede was jivin' in comp.os.linux.misc on Tue, 7 Sep
2021 09:36 pm. It's a cool scene! Dig it.

> Ok, so I was ninja'd on this. :-) I'm not sure sudo is required for
> these though. In fact, I don't think I've ever needed sudo to run
> them.

It seems you're right. I'm flabberghasted! My ghast has never been so
flabbered! (Frankie Howerd in Carry On Up the Jungle) This makes me
shudder. It should require root privileges to do things like this. I
could've sworn it (Debian, which I'm using, at least) used to. Why this
changed I cannot begin to fathom.

[Carlos E. R.]

You should not need to be root to make queries, only to install or
remove things.

And there are ways to allow a certain normal user to install things.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.