Q4OS Forum

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 605

Install Software Centre's softwares using the CLI?

Is there any advantage to install software from the Software Centre rather than from repositories (sudo apt install ...), and in this case is there a way to install / uninstall a Software Centre's software using the command line? I'm talking of Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, The GIMP, gparted, Update Manager, and others.

I ask the question because I'm writing a python3 script to reconfigure a system after a reinstall. This script will also reinstall a lot of packages and selectively restore dot-files and -directories saved during reinstall to
$HOME/dotfiles_backup_yyyy_mm_dd_HH_MM_SS/
(in the case users directories reside on a separate partition).

I'd like this script to be compatible with current and future versions of Q4OS.

Last edited by hchiper (2025-01-03 12:41)

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,797

Website

Re: Install Software Centre's softwares using the CLI?

Is there any advantage to install software from the Software Centre rather than from repositories

Yes.
- Installers may take care about some Q4OS specific dependencies.
- There are some software in the Software Centre, that isn't present in the default Debian repositories, for example Firefox, Google Chrome and others.
- Installers also provide automatic installation of language packages, for example for Libreoffice, Firefox and others.
- Software center offers Flatpak packages too.

... is there a way to install a Software Centre's software using the command line?

Yes. First you need to download installer, see an example for Firefox:
$ sh /usr/share/apps/q4os_system/bin/dwnld_instl.sh q4os-firefox
run non interactive installer in commandline mode:
$ sudo qsinst /tmp/.dwnlinstl/setup_q4os-firefox_4.4-a1_all.qsi
or run installer in gui mode:
$ appsetup2.exu /tmp/.dwnlinstl/setup_q4os-firefox_4.4-a1_all.qsi

I ask the question because I'm writing a python3 script to reconfigure a system after a reinstall ...

Maybe custom profiles would be suitable ? https://www.q4os.org/dqa016.html

Last edited by q4osteam (2025-01-03 12:45)

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 605

Re: Install Software Centre's softwares using the CLI?

Many thanks for your response.
It was easy to guess the names such as q4os-firefox, q4os-thunderbird, q4os-libreoffice, q4os-vlc, q4os-gparted, q4os-updater,...
Unfortunately other guesses don't work: q4os-gimp, q4os-okular, q4os-timeshift, q4os-keepassxc,...
Is there a place where I can find the appropriate names?

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,797

Website

Re: Install Software Centre's softwares using the CLI?

Is there a place where I can find the appropriate names?

Software center gets installers names from "/usr/share/apps/q4os_system/q4os_swcentre/*.qctcrc", however some of installers comes directly from Debian repositories, see "/usr/share/apps/q4os_system/q4os_swcentre/appsdeb/50_swcapp.lst" file.