(TIP) Seated-Spelunking
or, Finding cool new things, for free
by @admin, may 17, 2023, 09:45am utc
If you are looking for new ways to explore more about Linux, its tools, and applications; try this...
Spelunking spi-ˈləŋ-kiŋ is the hobby or practice of exploring caves. To spelunk, you just head into a cave and look around to see what's there.
You can experience some most of the fun of cave-spelunking right from your chair (hence, seated-spelunking©) but with none of the falling, broken legs, cuts, bruises, getting lost or the occasional brown bear that comes with caves.
It is true that our way (probably) will not result in finding cool stones, human remains or pirate treasure; but it's probably even better. What we will be spelunking through will be the vast trove of Linux tools, applications and information that is available for free to you, right now.
apt-cache
There are a number of ways to do this, including GUI ones like the package manager that came with your Linux.
We will use a command-line tool apt-cache because we think that you will find this approach the fastest and most flexible way to search.
Press ctrl-alt t to open a terminal; then search the applications cache for something that you might be interested in. This will return a pile of results, including many things that you may not have known existed.
Here is an example.
Search for the word 'game'.
$ apt-cache search game
This results in:
$ apt-cache search game
warzone2100 - 3D real time strategy game
warzone2100-data - data files for warzone2100
warzone2100-music - official music for warzone2100
wesnoth-1.14-core - fantasy turn-based strategy game (branch 1.14)
wesnoth-1.14 - fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete suite (branch 1.14)
wesnoth-1.14-server - multiplayer network server for Wesnoth (branch 1.14)
wesnoth-1.14-tools - tools for campaign developers for Wesnoth (branch 1.14)
wesnoth-1.16-core - fantasy turn-based strategy game (branch 1.16)
wesnoth-1.16 - fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete suite (branch 1.16)
wesnoth-1.16-server - multiplayer network server for Wesnoth (branch 1.16)
wesnoth-1.16-tools - tools for campaign developers for Wesnoth (branch 1.16)
wesnoth-core - fantasy turn-based strategy game (metapackage)
wesnoth - fantasy turn-based strategy game - complete suite (metapackage)
wfut - WorldForge Update Tool (executable)
whichwayisup - 2D platform game with a slight rotational twist
whitedune - graphical VRML97/X3D viewer, editor, 3D modeller and animation tool
widelands-data - fantasy real-time strategy game (data files)
widelands - fantasy real-time strategy game
winetricks - simple tool to work around common problems in Wine
wing-data - graphics and audio data for wing
wing - Galaga-like arcade game
Actually, the word 'game' was a bad example, because so many results are returned. There are over 1,436 items associated with 'game' and we're only showing the ones starting with 'w' above.
If you see something that you are interested in, you can install it for free.
Lets install wesnoth, a turn-based strategy game, that is sort of like 'World of Warcraft'.
wesnoth
To do so type:
$ sudo apt-get install wesnoth
apt will gather any supporting packages that are needed and install them as well.
For example, installing wesnoth also installs the following packages.
$ sudo apt-get install wesnoth
[sudo] password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
fonts-adf-oldania liballegro4.4 libboost-program-options1.74.0 libboost-random1.74.0 libmikmod3
libopusfile0 libsdl-mixer1.2 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libsdl2-ttf-2.0-0 wesnoth-1.14
wesnoth-1.14-aoi wesnoth-1.14-core wesnoth-1.14-data wesnoth-1.14-did wesnoth-1.14-dm
wesnoth-1.14-dw wesnoth-1.14-ei wesnoth-1.14-httt wesnoth-1.14-l wesnoth-1.14-low wesnoth-1.14-music
wesnoth-1.14-nr wesnoth-1.14-sof wesnoth-1.14-sota wesnoth-1.14-sotbe wesnoth-1.14-thot
wesnoth-1.14-trow wesnoth-1.14-tsg wesnoth-1.14-ttb wesnoth-1.14-utbs
The following NEW packages will be installed:
fonts-adf-oldania liballegro4.4 libboost-program-options1.74.0 libboost-random1.74.0 libmikmod3
libopusfile0 libsdl-mixer1.2 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libsdl2-ttf-2.0-0 wesnoth
wesnoth-1.14 wesnoth-1.14-aoi wesnoth-1.14-core wesnoth-1.14-data wesnoth-1.14-did wesnoth-1.14-dm
wesnoth-1.14-dw wesnoth-1.14-ei wesnoth-1.14-httt wesnoth-1.14-l wesnoth-1.14-low wesnoth-1.14-music
wesnoth-1.14-nr wesnoth-1.14-sof wesnoth-1.14-sota wesnoth-1.14-sotbe wesnoth-1.14-thot
wesnoth-1.14-trow wesnoth-1.14-tsg wesnoth-1.14-ttb wesnoth-1.14-utbs
0 upgraded, 35 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 427 MB of archives.
After this operation, 567 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Don't worry, if you want to get rid of wesnoth and all of its supporting packages, this will do so:
$ apt-get remove wesnoth
If you are getting too many results in your searches, you can add things like a sort to your command. This line will sort all of the results by passing the search results through a filter (that's the '|' character) to the linux command sort.
$ apt-cache search game | sort
## So there you go
You are now off on your way to seated-spelunking.
What are some other interesting searches?
Try:
$ apt-cache search office
$ apt-cache search ide
$ apt-cache search editor
$ apt-cache search graphics
or whatever that you would like to.
And remember that unlike cave spelunking — you are unlikely to run into a brown bear doing this from your chair.
tags: All users, Tips