Want to find open source tools? Linux distros have long had the tradition that software is bundled into easily-installed packages. Yet, finding packages can be less than intuitively obvious and even then they may not appear to be available for your flavour of choice. Here’s how to get the most out of Linux packages.

Actually, the first place to look is your very Linux distribution CD or DVD set. All Linux distros except those of the “damn small” variety ship with much more software on disc than is typically installed. When installing a distro you get a choice as to the kind of system you want often in the form of workstation vs server which installs different combinations of packages.

You can always add to the installed software by using a graphical tool to add (or remove) items, if your distro provides such. In some cases you might need to manually find the raw packages on the original disc but these will generally be located all in one folder with no clear organisation save for the name of the software. That’s fine, unless you only know the type of software you need, not the actual name of something that does it.

Here’s where the Internet always comes in handy

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The question: “Is it better to install software from sources on Linux? Or from packages? Should I get the deb/rpm or the tar?” appears often among new Linux users. This article will try to give a response to these questions and show that we should be happy that we have so many choices and can use the one that is best for ourselves. Indeed, this question makes sense only on the Linux world. Here we have different choices. We can achieve the same thing using different methods. Still, this doesn’t necessary mean that one choice is better than another one; it might just mean that some options are better for some situations and some for other situations.

Source or package install?