Add/Remove Software

Add/Remove software application accessed via System ▸ Administration ▸ Add/Remove Software allows you to search the software repository easily or browse through the different groups like multimedia or office and select software packages to install or remove from your system. You can find more information about any package such as description and dependencies by just clicking on it. Before installing a package, you also can visit the home page of the software projects easily for getting any additional details.

Figure 2Searching for a group with filters

Typically, you can find several thousands of software packages under different groups available. Since this can be overwhelming you can choose to filter the lists of software packages based on several criteria such as whether the package is already installed, whether it is a development or graphical application and based on the software license. See Section 3.1 ― Filters for more information about filters.

A software source configuration is available in the system menu that allows you to enable or disable a existing software repository. You can also refresh the application lists for displaying the latest information about software packages available in the repository.

3.1. Filters

You can limit the amount of software packages that is shown by several criteria.

To see only installed or only uninstalled software, choose the corresponding menu item in the Filters ▸ Installed menu.

To see only software containing applications with a graphical user interface or only applications with a command line interface, choose a filter from the Filters ▸ Graphical menu.

Note that PackageKit uses a heuristic to determine if a package is a 'graphical' application and can get this wrong when a package has dependencies like gtk2+.

To see only software that qualify as free software, choose the corresponding menu item from the Filters ▸ Free menu. Currently, PackageKit considers a package to be free software if its license is listed as such in the Fedora Licensing page.

3.2. Searching for software

The search entry and Find button let you search for software. The icon inside the entry indicates what kind of search is performed. By clicking on it, you can select to search for a string that is contained in package name, the package description, or search for the name of a file contained in the package.