(2012-07-30, 15:56)malibu327 Wrote: constrictor thank you for replying. i have putty and a few more ssh apps to get into it. I was just wondering how to do stuff like that from the gui.
and yes, if does seem complicated. things i dont understand is say something simple like installing java for it. I downloaded the version for linux ubuntu but when i double click on it to install it does nothing. how would i have downloaded and installed if from the terminal window?
Anything you can install from the GUI, installs the same way from the Terminal.
I am not an expert on Linux by any means, so what I am about to say is going to be extremely simplified and might not even be totally correct, but here is how I understand how this part works...
A Linux distro can be broken down into a three major layers. You have the Linux Kernel which is the base layer and it contains the functionality of the whole OS and it is what directly interacts with the hardware of the machine its running on. All flavors of Linux (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, etc) use this same Linux kernel.
Then there is the operating system layer. The operating system is where different flavors of Linux start to separate. The operating system contains the device drivers that allow the hardware to interact with the software. Ubuntu is a very flexible flavor of Linux because it contains a wide variety of hardware support through drivers and other code that allow it to interact with the Kernel.
On top of the operating system is the Shell layer. The shell layer is where the operating system and the kernel interact with the user. The Shell can take many forms, from a simple Terminal prompt, to a fancy GUI. One of these fancy GUIs is called Gnome. Gnome is the default GUI in Ubuntu. Other flavors of Linux use a GUI called KDE. You can accomplish almost all of the same tasks with the operating system in the Shell layer with a Terminal environment as you could with Gnome or any other user interface.
So, to partially answer your question, how would you install java through SSH as opposed to doing it through the desktop...the answer is the same! You just need to know the correct application name and command to do it.
Anything you install in XBMCbuntu through PuTTY applies to the entire operating system. Dont think of the desktop as some other "part" of the OS. The desktop environment interacts with the underlying layers of the OS in the same way as the Terminal does. Regardless if you install something from the Terminal or the Desktop, the effect is the same.
I dont know the command to specifically install java from the Terminal, but Im sure a quick google search will give you the command.