Run Apps from Old or Different Linux Installations
Strange Binaries
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If you want to run an app from a different distribution or architecture or one that needs different libraries, we show you some tricks to make this work on your Linux machine.
One Linux fact that irritates new users is that they can't simply download an arbitrary application installer file and run its setup procedure on their Linux box – after all, that's what people do on Windows boxes. Instead, you need to use the package manager of your distribution and locate the app in the available repositories.
While that's good enough most of the time, sometimes you'll want to use a program that is incompatible with your Linux installation. We'll look a three methods that let you add the program even though it's for the wrong distribution, the wrong decade of Linux software, or even the wrong architecture.
Run Multiple Linux Distros in Parallel
Distrobox [1] lets you install additional Linux distributions on your regular Linux PC without the need to partition your disk, reboot your machine, or create a virtual machine. Reasons for doing this include trying out an application that comes bundled with some other distro, but not yours, or checking whether your build process creates packages that install and run properly on various distributions during software development.
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