this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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https://mullvad.net/en/help/install-mullvad-app-linux

Trying to install VPN and these are the instructions Mullvad is giving me. This is ridiculous. There must be a more simple way. I know how to follow the instructions but I have no idea what I'm doing here. Can't I just download a file and install it? I'm on Ubuntu.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (10 children)

I don't want to sound arrogant but is reading a few paragraphs then copying and pasting 3 different commands into a terminal really that difficult?

It will make life easier in the long run as having a repo added will update the software with sudo apt upgrade in the future.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

It's not difficult. I've installed several apps that way already. I just don't like blindly following instructions while having zero understanding of what I'm actually doing here. Also, in this case the instructions are unhelpful because nowhere it tells me to install curl first and because of me not having it the first command just comes back with an error.

[–] Shihali 12 points 11 months ago

cURL is a very commonly used program to download individual files from the command line and worth installing to have it around in the future.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install curl

The first command tells your package manager to update its list so you ask for the latest version. You can skip it if you've already updated today. The second command tells your package manager to install cURL.

This will happen every now and then, especially when building a package from source. You won't have some common utility that the documentation writer assumed you had, and you will need to find what package provides it and install the package.

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