Introduction:

All packages that are included in the official BOSS distribution are free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. This assures free use and redistribution of the packages and their complete source code. The official BOSS distribution is what is contained in the main section of the BOSS archive.BOSS follows Debian way of maintaining the repository.With the Debian packages we have our own packages also that make BOSS GNU/Linux Indian.

As a service to our users, we also provide packages in separate sections that cannot be included in the main distribution due to either a restrictive license or legal issues. They include:

Contrib Packages in this area are freely licensed by the copyright holder but depend on other software that is not free.

Non-Free Packages in this area have some onerous license condition restricting use or redistribution of the software.

Accessing BOSS-Sethu (oldstable)

Sethu can be accessed through sethu/oldstable

Update /etc/apt/sources.list with

For Binary (deb packages)
deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss sethu main contrib non-free

For source (tar.gz, dsc)
deb-src http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss sethu main contrib non-free

Accessing BOSS-Tarang (stable)

Tarang can be accessed through tarang/stable

Update /etc/apt/sources.list with

For Binary (deb packages)
deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss tarang main conrtib non-free

For source (tar.gz, dsc)
deb-src http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss tarang main contrib non-free

For Debian-Installer (.udeb)
 deb http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss tarang main/debian-installer

Access boss mirror through browser:

http://packages.bosslinux.in/boss

Installing additional packages/applications from the boss packages repository:

update /etc/apt/sources.list with the repo path specifed on the top according to the release you are using (sethu/tarang)

You can install the package needed in two ways ..

1. Using Graphical Front End - Synaptic

Desktop --> Administration --> Synaptic Package Manager
     
    Check the Packages which you want to install and click on Apply button to install those packages.

2. Using apt tool

apt is an Advanced Packaging Tool. APT is a management system for software packages.

After updating soruces.list, do

$ apt-get update  --> This will scan the repository mentioned in sources.list
     
    $apt-get install package-name --> Install the package you want.Replace package-name with the actual name of 
     the package.

Getting the source Package:

$ apt-get -d source source-package-name

Searching the Package existence in the repository

$ apt-cache search package-name

Removing the installed pacakge in the system

$apt-get remove package-name

Installing Downloaded Packages

Sometimes you might want to install a package which you have downloaded from a website, rather than from a software repository. These packages are called .deb files. Because they may have been created for a different Linux distribution, they may have unmet dependencies on BOSS and so may not be installable.

Using dpkg to install packages

dpkg is a command-line tool used to install packages. To install a package with dpkg, open a Terminal and type the following:

cd directory 
sudo dpkg -i package_name.deb

Note: replace directory with the directory in which the package is stored and package_name with the filename of 
the  package.

It is recommended that you read the dpkg manual page before using dpkg, as improper use may break the package management database. To view the manual page for dpkg, open a Terminal and type man dpkg.