I am trying to install Powerchute Serial Shutdown for my APC UPS. It only comes from the vendor in RPM format. The package has a .rpm and a .sh file inside. I used Alien to convert the .rpm to a .deb. That seemed to work ok and using the dpkg -i command seemed to install with no errors, but the program doesn't show up anywhere to run. It looks like the app was installed to the APC folder in /opt folder but I have no idea how to run the app. In the apt list command it shows as being installed as pcssagent, but typing that into the terminal does not run the app. The .sh file in text editor looks to be a script file for the install but isn't part of the .rpm just sits in the same folder when uncompressed. It's made for the .rpm so I don't think it would work for the .deb. I'm running Zorin 18.1 core if that matters.
Can anyone help me figure out what I am doing wrong. I am very new to Zorin/Linux (1.5 months) but very computer literate( using since TRS-80 and 1.5 years of an associate degree for programing) so I am very comfortable with the terminal and such. It's just the differance between Linux and what I am used to(Windows) is kicking my butt. I am really wanting to keep with Linux and get this figured out so any help will be greatly appreciated.
Alien is a very useful tool. That does not mean that any .rpm package will work as a .deb install, however.
What alien can do is convert the format so that dpkg can recognize and follow the tree placement steps. But the install scripts can still make .rpm based assumptions - and so the software cannot fully install or run.
This likely is not some "newbie" mistake on your part. It is likely a fundamental difference between two package bases that alien cannot fully account for.
The rule of thumb generally is - try alien. If it works great, if not - stop there.
The next step is to check that package version in case that is all that was wrong.
Then, if that was fine, look at other package options like Appimage...
Or alternative software that meets your needs but is compatible with your build.
Now, with that out of the way...
This gets a bit more complex.
I am not familiar with Powerchute... so I needed to look it up.
From what I can tell, it is a running service daemon, not a GUI program that you launch and get a window for. So before we assume the package is not working on the grounds that you do not see a GUI launchable window - let's confirm and clarify that.
I can tell already that pcssagent is a service and not an application.
That all makes sense. I guess I'm not sure how to start a service daemon then. I tried restarting to see if it would come up on it's own (it's supposed to run in the background to shutdown the system in the event of power outage), but I still can't find the process in system monitor.
When I used the app in Windows there was a GUI for configuring the app behavior and port usage. I thought they might in linux as well. All the instructions I could find from the vendor looks like there should be a GUI to use. Also what I could find is the process is supposed to create a ttyACM* file in /dev when the usb cord is plugged in to the comp. But the tty file is still not present even after re-seating the cable. I found and followed the process for starting the cdc-acm module and making sure it starts on startup, but still no joy.
I'm getting the bad feeling I am going to have to unpack the .rpm and manually rebuild it into a .deb and figure out how to rewrite the install script.
After looking into this, yes: A large number of the package assumptions are aimed toward Red Hat or Suse, with paths that don't exist in Ubuntu or Zorin OS.
This causes a blanking of those scripts, allowing it to "install" in that the package is extracted and placed - but dead software. Alien could not save us, here. Probably because of its little inner mouth.
The website does offer another install method in a tarball.
We can walk you through that process, if you choose.
From what else I have read, there is no GUI application for GnuLinux. On Windows, they do add a GUI app. On GnuLinux, the user is to navigate in their web browser to https://localhost:6547 in order to get a GUI display, which would be a web app.
That being said...
Before we shove our heads into this rabbit hole... How sold are you on using PowerChute?
Because there is already a fully native GnuLinux build to perform the same function.
If you want to go this route, I recommend removing orphaned packages:
sudo apt purge pcssagent
sudo rm -rf /opt/APC
Then you can install the native Linux Build which is Apcupsd with the terminal command:
You may notice what is listed: apcupsd, the apcupsd-cgi addon but also gapcmon. Gapcmon is the GUI access point you can use to monitor battery, voltage, etc.
making progress at least so thank you so much for your help.
I did the purge and rf, worked fine. However for the last command I got back E: unable to find package gapcmon(basically I forget exact words right now). But I tried to install the apcupsd and apcupsd-cgi. Those went on ok, and I found something called Webmin to use the -cgi, I got webmin on ok and thought I had the stuff set up right but the module keeps saying comms lost(so does the teminal in the apcaccess status command)
So now I am either trying to find gapcmon or figuring out how to configure webmin. I may need to set the conf file back to original from backup in case i messed up something in there.
I was wrong. I am not familiar with this software - so looked up information on the web.
It turns out... gapcmon is an older package that is deprecated and not in the repository any more.
Sigh.
But you do not need it because on your own, you found webmin.
So...
sudo nano /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf
arrow key to UPSCABLE and ensure it looks exactly like: UPSCALE usb
Do the same for: UPSTYPE usb
And for Device, ensure it says just the word and is blank after that: DEVICE
Tap ctl+o to overwrite, then enter to save as current configuration. Tap ctl+x to exit the file in editor.
Now...
sudo nano /etc/default/apcupsd
Ensure that ISCONFIGURED=yes, not set to no.
Tap ctl+o to overwrite, then enter to save as current configuration. Tap ctl+x to exit the file in editor.
sudo systemctl restart apcupsd
apcaccess status
This post is made based on comments from three different redits and one stack exchange - so...Fingers crossed.
I did the ctl+o but didn't get the enter to save part. That's prolly where my issues are. I will try then in the morning and reply if they work. Again thank you so much.
redid the steps with the conf files and then restarted the service. Seems to have done the trick. Shows as online in the terminal and webmin shows it connected and allows me to change the configuration. Thanks for all your help.
Just one last question. What resource did you use to find apcupsd? Like is there a listing somewhere of all the apps in a repository somewhere that's browseable? If soo that would be awesome and save me so much time looking for things.
The thing about search engines is to be sure to scroll down and to turn pages - most people only glance at the first few hits on a net search.
There are several ways.
Using apt search in your terminal is very effective.
There are online listings;
For me, one of my more easily searched, navigated and studied sources is pkgs.org
Generally, I use this last one mostly for searching for .deb packages. An easy example was when you said you could find only an .rpm for Powerchute, I searched pkgs.org for a .deb version (But none existed.)
When that failed, I began considering creating one - which led me to getting the download and reading the install script and deciding to search if there were any native Linux alternatives.
It was not that it was difficult - just tedious and I did not have a lot of free time.
Thank you so much for the links I will check them out. I get very much what you meant about it being tedious, doomscrolling 15 pages of results where 95% are all the same garbage is not fun. Most of my apps, if there isn't a native or flatpak equivalent, I just find the closest native alternative and call it good. Or I will try Bottles(has worked for a few like Amazon Music), or as a case of last result using Boxes to run it in a VM. But this being for system shutdown and needing to know it will work for my brand of UPS I was kinda stuck trying to find a way to make it work.
Most everything else in my switch from Windows to Linux hasn't been too bad. I found plenty of sites with instruction for getting Boxes running and fixing the no kvm error, got it going fine now. And the control of the system Linux gives by default and the extra you get from learning terminal is so preferable, that, I think with the resources available to figure problems out, I'm here to stay. And Zorin being so Windows-like I think really makes the switching process both reachable and relatable enough to make me really want to. I am glad I chose Zorin to start with and with everything you can do with it I think it will actually keep me here and not distro hopping endlessly which sounded again tedious. I didn't really care for Nautalis so I grabed Nemo, works great and had the features I wanted, no need to switch distro. I know I can't make it default without a crapton of headache, but I can use Nautalis when I have to and Nemo rest of the time and I'm ok with that.
All that is I guess to help explain that I ran into what for me was a huge problem. And you very clearly were a gigantic help and basically walked me through it to completion. I know that can't happen all the time, but knowing it is possible is all that I needed to know, to know I made the right choice and you were a large part of that reassurance. So again thank you so much, I really do appreciate greatly all the time you put into this and hopefully with what I learned from it I can figure more of this out on my own in the future.
However, on Zorin OS Core, Nautilus and File Picker are two separate packages.
When you move to download or upload a file - that window is the file picker, not Nautilus.