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I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32 bit, 2 GB of memory. Which default package should I select when asked before downloading an application like the Opera Web Browser?

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  • Check my edits at the bottom of my answer for installing opera.
    – heemayl
    Feb 7, 2015 at 2:41

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Normally in Ubuntu the packages that you can install directly via command line (sudo apt-get install <package>) or software center has the .deb format. Here all the dependencies will be automatically fixed, so you don't need to worry about anything just use the command line or software center to install a package, the package manager will take the right decision for you.

If you want you can also download the source files (sudo apt-get source <package>) of the packages available at the repositories, normally have the format of compressed archive i.e. tar.gz or tar.bz2 format. Normally you don't need to download the source files of the packages that are already available at the .deb format. If you need to really build from source you can check this.

Now what about a package that is not available at repository? Well, in that case you need to look for a .deb availability of the package. If .deb is found you can install it via dpkg(sudo dpkg -i package.deb), but remember you need to satisfy the dependencies yourself.

What if the .deb format is not available then you can download the source file of the package in .tar.gz ot tar.bz2 or any other format and then uncompresses and compile the package yourself. Normally there would be a README file inside telling what you need to do to install the package.

Opera 32 bit :

In case of Opera 32 bit, go to this page and just hit "Free Download For Linux i386", don't bother about the package format as it will be downloaded as a .deb package (you typically don't need need tar.gz or tar.bz2 when .deb is available). Then install it via command line taking help from here.

Xen2050 made a good point that you can also use official repository or a PPA to download Opera. If you do so you the can just use apt-get as usual to install Opera directly. For example you can do the following to add the official Opera repository and install opera:

sudo bash -c 'echo "deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list'
sudo bash -c 'wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | apt-key add -'

Now as the repository and GPG key has been added you can just issue the following to install Opera:

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install opera
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  • Or add repositories (like getdeb, or just "sections" like restricted, universe, multiverse) or PPA's
    – Xen2050
    Feb 7, 2015 at 6:00
  • @Xen2050: Good point..adding..
    – heemayl
    Feb 7, 2015 at 6:23
  • Hello heemayl and @Xen2050, it seems that this version of Opera is obsolete and not available. I downloaded the file in my Download folder, but the terminal said it cannot access to the archive and there is no file of this type. Thanks. I will continue using Firefox and Chromium. I am new in the Linux world and I am happy having learned a few things. Mar 5, 2015 at 23:01

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