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I am fairly new to ubuntu and I just installed TexWorks. Everything works fine but can someone give me step by step to install packages. With Windows I used the MikTex package manager but I am lost on how to install packages for linux.

Please let me know the best and easiet solution.

Thanks

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Welcome to TeX.sx! Usually, we don't put a greeting or a "thank you" in our posts. While this might seem strange at first, it is not a sign of lack of politeness, but rather part of our trying to keep everything very concise. Upvoting is the preferred way here to say "thank you" to users who helped you. – Xavier Jan 27 at 21:12

1 Answer

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Texworks is a TeX editor, not a TeX distribution (as far as I know). The way to manage packages will depend on which TeX distribution you are using / how you installed TeX. The most common are installing TeX Live either through Ubuntu's package manager (apt-get or a GUI version of it) or manually (tlmgr).

apt-get

If you installed TeX through Ubuntu's package manager, everything will be handled through it too. Look for packages called texlive-..., i.e., to install pstricks, use the command

apt-get install texlive-pstricks

This way of installing teX on Ubuntu is common as it easy, but the drawback is that packages can be (significantly) outdated, as updates are infrequent.

tlmgr

Installing TeXLive directly (called a "vanilla" installation) is a little more hassle, but you get the benefits of an up-to-date installation.
There is already a howto on TeX.sx on how to perform such an installation: How to install "vanilla" TeXLive on Debian or Ubuntu?
As for how to manage packages, you will then be using a tool called tlmgr. The full documentation is available online, and the short answer is that you install packages with

tlmgr install <package name>

and update the whole system with

tlmgr update -all
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Is there a way I can install the tlmgr utility without uninstalling and then reinstalling using the vanilla method. – masfenix Jan 27 at 21:30
@masfenix -- No. The Debian/Ubuntu repositories package their own version of TeX Live and it does not (and will not) include tlmgr. Installing packages yourself is not hard (especially those packages as .tds.zip --- lots are, but not all), but requires you to be somewhat confident when it comes to the command line. You can install the Ubuntu TeX Live in parallel with the 'real' TeX Live if you have the disk space. You should read this question. – jon Jan 27 at 21:45
I've installed texlive directly - vanilla installation. However I don't know where my editor is?! calling texworks from terminal dosnt do anything – masfenix Feb 2 at 3:22
TeXworks is only distributed directly with TeX Live on Windows (and with MacTeX on OS X). On Ubuntu, you can install it easily with apt-get install texworks. Note that Gedit is quite a good editor in my opinion too (with some plugins, gedit-plugins-latex I believe). TeXmaker and Kile are other options. – Xavier Feb 2 at 4:02

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