Setting up Synaptic on BOSS Linux

Heres how you can setup synaptic to be able to download packages from BOSS Linux’s online repository.

Open /etc/apt/sources.list using your favorite text editor (Gedit, vi etc), It is advisable to create a backup of the existing sources.list file, you can try renaming it as sources.list.old or any such name that makes sense to you.

if you are doing this for the first time you’ll see the link for the CD-ROM in there, remove it before proceeding.

Paste the following as a single line of text in the souces.list file:

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss anant main contrib non-free

save the file and close the editor.

Now make sure you are connected to the internet and open Synaptic(System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager) and press the refresh button, Synaptic will now download the list of application from the online repository. You can select the application you need and install it.

Notes:

Depending on your version on BOSS Linux you may need to change the contents of the string deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss anant main contrib non-free. Refer to the user manual which is usually found on the Desktop for details. I am using version 2.0 and the above settings work for me,

You can also add repositories to the sources.list file from within Synaptic by Clicking Settings>Repositories>Add and selecting a repository, however on my version of BOSS this leads to a wrong string http://pacakges… instead of http://packages…

Update for BOSS Linux Version 3.0 Tejas:

The string you need to add to your /apt/etc/sources.list file for BOSS Linux version 3.0 tejas is

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss tejas main contrib non-free

Update: The above line works for both BOSS Linux version 3 and version 3.1

For EduBOSS: Synaptic is configured during installation, there usually is not need to do it manually.

The line you need to add to /etc/sources.list for EduBOSS is:

deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss eduboss main contrib non-free

Hello world in C on BOSS (basic GCC usage)

So you are trying to set up BOSS for some C programming? Heres a basic how-to.

The first thing you’ll need is a compiler, gcc the GNU C Compiler comes installed by default in BOSS. Next you’ll need an editor, many editors(vi, nano, gedit to name a few) come installed by default in BOSS Linux. You can also use IDEs like Anjuta, Eclipse, Netbeans etc.

Lets get this started: we will be using Gedit, get to a terminal window(Applications>Accessories>Terminal) once on the terminal window type:

gedit firstfile.c

or any other filename of your choice in place of firstfile, be sure to use the .c extension. Otherwise GCC will not be able to recognize it as a C source file. Press the Enter key and type the following code in the Gedit window:

#include<stdio.h>

int main()

{

printf(“Hello World!”);

getchar();

return 0;

}

I am sure you have seen something like this before 🙂 its just a basic program to get you feet wet, Most students from India start off C/C++ programming with the Turbo C++ Version 3.0 compiler and are in the habit of using getch(); at the end of the code to basically make the execution wait for the user to press a key before completion. Well, conio.h is not a part of the C Language and it limited to old MS-DOS C Compilers, so I used getchar() in its place, it does pretty much the same thing in this program.

Now save the file and close gedit to get back to the terminal window. We will now compile firtsfile.c. Type:

gcc firstfile.c

If all goes well the prompt will reappear on the next line without any message, otherwise you’ll see an error message.

Now we will execute the file, the default name for the executable is a.out, to execute it type:

./a.out

and press Enter on the terminal, you will see:

Hello World

with the blinking cursor to the right of the d Press enter to return to the prompt.

On windows with Turbo C++ you have firstfile.exe as the executable generated, a.out is the default name for the executable file created by GCC. To use a name of your choice use the -o argument with gcc:

gcc firstfile.c -o firstfile

this will generate an executable by the name firstfile.

Happy Coding 🙂

Playing MP3s on BOSS Linux

So you are having trouble playing mp3s on BOSS??? Just about everybody has used Winamp, and a similar software exists on Linux too, its called xmms (x multimedia system) and heres how you can install it…

open a terminal window (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and type in:

apt-get install xmms

press Enter and once the download is completed you will have xmms show up in

Applications> Sound & Video>XMMS

XMMS allows you to change the default skin, to change the skin right click anywhere on XMMS(except the playlist) and then click Options > Skin Browser just select a skin from the list and you are on 🙂 To get more skins visit the XMMS website , download the XMMS skin of your choice (it will be a .tar.gz file), place the file i:

/…/.xmms/Skins

where  … is the path to your home directory, for example if you login user ID is happy, your home directory will be /home/happy, so the directory to paste the skin file will be /home/happy.xmms/Skins

Happy Listening 🙂