Getting Synaptic, your Pi's best friend (Part 1)

Time for the first thing you'll really want to do with your Pi, add software so you can actually do things with your Pi

To add programs or packages as the linux community seem to call them the traditional way is to go into a programme called terminal, and do it by adding a string of text based commands, its a little scary for the beginner, so there has to be a better way of doing it thats a bit more point and click.

Indeed there is, its time to get Synaptic installed on your Pi. So what can Synaptic do?

• It uses a graphical front end to make it easier to do things with your Pi
• Find where updates are available in your version of Raspbian
• Install the updates you select, or install all available updates
• Allow you to search for software available for your Pi using your own specified keywords
• Allow you to browse available software by category
• Install everything needed to get that software running on your Pi
• Remove software you don't need 

So if theres something you want your Pi to be able to do, Synaptic is going to be key in getting what you want to happen. To get Synaptic, you will have to enter a single line of text into Terminal. Heres how to do it:

• Power up and boot into your Pi's desktop
• From the icons down the side, select and open LX Terminal, the one that looks like a blank monitor.
• Up will pop a plain text window, on the first line will be something like: "pi@raspberrypi ~ $"
• Type exactly as written the the following, all in lower case letters:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

• Answer 'y' to any prompts.
• Leave your Pi to do its thang, it should be spewing text out, checking package lists, downloading stuff, then installing it.
• When its done tap the start button.
• Move up to "Other" and expand it.
• Open "Synaptic Package Manager" your password is 'raspberry'.
• And now you have Synaptic installed and running. It will take a short while whilst it does a system scan for any bits that need updating in Raspbian.

Updating your Pi

When my Pi was first set up and I installed Synaptic i was informed there were 62 updates available. This sounds horrendous, but its not really, each minor individual file that makes up your copy of Raspbian is checked. So out of all those thousands of files in your OS, 62 needing an update is quite a small percentage (less than 1%).  The update process is really easy:

• Click the mark all upgrades icon at the top of the screen, 
• Click the apply icon, and leave synaptic to do its thing, it will take a while to download, and install all the updates. 
• Once the stuff is downloaded and it switches to installing select the "Automatically close this window after the changes have been applied" option.
• Its best make a coffee while you're waiting, you can even make a sandwich if you're hungry, you'll have the time spare.
• Once all updates are done and the install window disappears  reboot and start again with a freshly updated Pi.

Unfortunately I havent found an auto update setting so you'll have to do this yourself periodically. Next post will be a bit more about using Synaptic, how to download software that kind of thing, so you can start having a useful Pi that does more things than just browse the web.