11-13-2014, 04:37 PM
Synaptic Package Manager is same in both and will allow you to install same packages in LL that you can with either Synaptic or Mint Software Manager in Mint. LL comes with certain extra repositories already added to the system that allow for installing some popular packages that are not automatically included when looking in Synaptic (or Software Manager) in Mint and that is one difference. Common example would be Google's Chrome browser. That can be easily installed to LL through "Install Additional Software" menu because its repo has already been added to the system; whereas in Mint, you'd have to manually do that yourself first.
Main problem when just starting out with Linux is that package names are frequently strange and bare no obvious resemblance to function you might be looking for. Synaptic is great, but not good if you don't already know the name of the package you need. The categorization and package descriptions in a software manager like Mint's definitely makes things easier for newbies when they just want to explore what's available and don't have any idea which packages are for what.
LL tries to include the most common programs that people use in its "Install Additional Software" menu to alleviate problem of finding those with Synaptic and to make installation of them extremely easy. It's possible to add a software manager to LL, but doing so can cause problems. Adding Ubuntu's software center (package name = software-center) definitely does mess up LL, so you don't want to use that. The lubuntu-software-center might be a viable option to try out. (Just enter it in search bar of Synaptic to find and install it.) It does not install most of the dependency packages the Ubuntu's software-center does that cause the conflicts with LL's proper functioning. But I'm not 100% sure that it won't cause some conflicts, so you may want to clone your drive before attempting to use that so you have an easy way to get everything back to the way it was if the system gets messed up. (If your install is fairly new and you don't have much reason to save what's there, then doing a fresh re-installation is quicker.)
Main problem when just starting out with Linux is that package names are frequently strange and bare no obvious resemblance to function you might be looking for. Synaptic is great, but not good if you don't already know the name of the package you need. The categorization and package descriptions in a software manager like Mint's definitely makes things easier for newbies when they just want to explore what's available and don't have any idea which packages are for what.
LL tries to include the most common programs that people use in its "Install Additional Software" menu to alleviate problem of finding those with Synaptic and to make installation of them extremely easy. It's possible to add a software manager to LL, but doing so can cause problems. Adding Ubuntu's software center (package name = software-center) definitely does mess up LL, so you don't want to use that. The lubuntu-software-center might be a viable option to try out. (Just enter it in search bar of Synaptic to find and install it.) It does not install most of the dependency packages the Ubuntu's software-center does that cause the conflicts with LL's proper functioning. But I'm not 100% sure that it won't cause some conflicts, so you may want to clone your drive before attempting to use that so you have an easy way to get everything back to the way it was if the system gets messed up. (If your install is fairly new and you don't have much reason to save what's there, then doing a fresh re-installation is quicker.)
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