You also can build aptitude from source; however, this is
probably not a useful exercise unless apt
is already
available on your system. If it is, you can install
aptitude from source with the following steps:
Install the following pieces of software:
A C++ compiler, such as g++.
The development files for apt
, typically available
in a package with a name like
libapt-pkg-dev
.
The libsigc++-2.0
library,
available in the package
libsigc++-2.0-dev
or from
http://libsigc.sourceforge.net.
The cwidget
library,
available in the package
libcwidget-dev
or from
http://cwidget.alioth.debian.org.
The gettext
program, which
should be included with your Linux distribution.
A make
tool, such as GNU
make.
Last but not least, download the most recent aptitude source code, available from http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/aptitude. (scroll to the bottom of the page and download the “.orig.tar.gz” file)
Once all the required components are available, open a
terminal and execute the command tar zxf
aptitude-0.8.13.tar.gz to unpack the source
code. Once the source code is unpacked, type cd
aptitude-0.8.13 && ./configure &&
make to compile aptitude. If this succeeds,
make sure you are the root
user (by using
su, for instance), then type
make install to install aptitude on
your computer. Once aptitude is successfully installed,
typing aptitude at a command prompt
should start the program.