New kid on Debian block. Haven't used Linux since 2006
 

Greetings,

Please pardon my ignorance. I know practically nothing about Linux as I've been a Windows guy since the beginning. At work here I am expected to install things. My 1st accomplishment is making myself SU. I understand that to install the MPLAB IDE, I need to install the 32-bit Linux libraries. Can this be done through the GUI inteface or do I have to do it at the command line level? Any help is greatly appreciated! Where do I begin?

Regards,
howard.

Hello Howard, welcome to the forum. The answer to your question heavily depends on the Distribution you are using. This could be e.g. Debian, RedHat, SuSE...
If you do not know which distro you are using here are two links with directions on how to find out:

http://www.howtoforge.com/how_to_fin...x_distribution
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/find-li...ersion-number/

Sorry, I forgot to mention I am using Debian Linux on this PC.
Guten Tag.

There are a lot of libraries, do you know which ones you need? Hard to tell what you mean by "Linux libraries."

Not entirely sure. On the MPLAB website it said to install the 32-bit compatibility libraries before installing the MPLAB IDE. Does that help?

Compatibility runtime libraries for debian:

https://packages.debian.org/squeeze/ia32-libs

Thats the name of the package and a description. If that checks out, then using aptitude, or apt-get to install the package is your next step, ie:

Thanks. Following download of the file I did cd /Downloads. Then apt-get install ia32-libs_2014013_ia64.deb.
It prints:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package ia32-libs_20140131_ia64.deb
E: Couldn't find and package by regex 'ia32-libs_20140131_ia64.deb

How can read the package then say it can't find it? Did I do this right?

Ah,.. I was just pointing you to information about the package. You don't have to actually download it.

Just type the command I provided and it will install that package from your current debian repositories and take care of the many dependencies it probably has. Doing it by hand (downloading and installing) might be a pain in the ass.

A guy here who knows this well had to edit a file associated with apt-get as it kept telling me to install a CDROM. Now that it is pointing to websites it is busy installing library packages. Thank you for your help.

Howard.

Howard:
Welcome to LQ.
Bookmark these --> http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/
http://www.debianadmin.com/

Have fun!

That file is your sources list. Its location is /etc/apt/sources.list.
When the system is installed from a disc, the installation disc is enabled as a source of packages. All your colleague did was open the file with an editor, probably nano, and put a "#" in front of each of the two CD entries.

Believe it or not, most of the administrative work with Debian is that easy. Have fun.:)