Mailing List Archive

Hi there,

On Tue, 8 Dec 2020, David García via clamav-users wrote:

> Hi, i'm having problems installing ClamAV following the method shown in:
>
> https://www.clamav.net/documents/installation-on-debian-and-ubuntu-linux-distributions
>
> ...
> I got scared by the last message (Unable to locate package...)
> because this is my first Linux distro ever, and I don't want to mess
> with the OS. -Was that something to worry about?-

Probably not, but I don't know what gremlins there may be lurking in
your distribution. Until reading your message I'd never heard of it.

The first two hits on my search (and in fact the first line of the
Wikipedia article) were enough for me to never want to go anywhere
near it. The brief description on the first hit was:

"Imagine an OS for the software developer, maker and computer science
professional who uses their computer as a tool to discover and create."

Given your questions, you obviously aren't in the target audience. If
you want to run Linux but you aren't very familiar with it, then I'd
suggest that you stick with one of the more mainstream distributions,
such as (in alphabetical order) Debian, Fedora, SUSE or perhaps one of
their well known derivatives. You will probably find things go more
smoothly. A newish distribution is bound to have wrinkles which will
cause problems to someone new, and one which aims at professionals if
you aren't already very experienced seems like asking for pain. There
probably isn't a package for your distro with the name that you gave.
That could mean that it hasn't been packaged at all, or that it has a
different name in your distro. You need to be able to find out which.

When you type

sudo apt-get install .....

you're using what's known as a 'package manager'. The package manager
is designed to be safe to use (if you read any of the documentation)
so unless you do something like "--force" an update when the package
manager has advised against it you probably won't break anything. If
you're new, the way to install things is to use packages for as much
as possible. In amongst the documentation you should find a way to
search for packages. Try something like

apt-cache search clamav

You don't need sudo, nor root permissions to use apt-search. If there
are packages for ClamAV then you can install them with something like:

sudo apt-get install clamav-common clamav-daemon clamav-whatever

If you do what is described in the link that you posted you're doing
it the hard way, and you can expect to need some experience to do it.

> I know this is probably too much to ask, but I was wondering if you
> could create a guide specifically for Pop! OS.

Yes, it probably is too much to ask, especially if there's already a
set of ClamAV packages for the distro. But you could do it yourself
if you eventually figure it out. That's how this all works.

> There are a lot of new noobies who know nothing about Linux, and the
> distro is growing like crazy in popularity. -ClamTK is available at
> the Pop! OS Shop, but the last time it was updated was back in 2019-

If you don't want headaches, don't choose something like an operating
system because it's "growing like crazy in popularity". Choose it for
more mundane reasons like there's great community support and doesn't
give newcomers much pain.

Why do you want to install ClamAV?

Please only reply to the mailing list, my list address accepts mail
only from the list server.

--

73,
Ged.

_______________________________________________

clamav-users mailing list
clamav-users@lists.clamav.net
https://lists.clamav.net/mailman/listinfo/clamav-users


Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide:
https://github.com/vrtadmin/clamav-faq

http://www.clamav.net/contact.html#ml