I am using Debian for a few days now. I want to install Firefox and kopete but do not know how. I dowloaded kopete an appears as a .deb file , firefox appear as a .tar.bz2 file. I did something trying to install the programs but nothing works. The best I got was seeing the icon for kopete but when I click on it nothing happens, Synaptic package management tells me it is a broken and is marked red (not good obviously). How do I install programs in debian (is different than with windows where programs comes with .exe). Any help will be appreciated.

Post the command:
Also, try as root:
Afterwards, start synaptic.

For firefox, the package is iceweasel. For kopete you have to install almost all packages for KDE.

After doing the commands the output is not much different from the previous one.This is the result

herbert:/home/herbert# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
#
# deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50]/ etch contrib main

deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50]/ etch contrib main

deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
herbert:/home/herbert# apt-get update
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50] etch Release.gpg
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50] etch Release
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50] etch/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - Official i386 CD Binary-1 20080217-11:50] etch/main Packages/DiffIndex
Get:1 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release [37.6kB]
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources/DiffIndex
Ign http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Sources/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org etch/updates/contrib Sources
Fetched 37.8kB in 4s (9429B/s)
Reading package lists... Done

Any further orientation will be appreciated.

As root, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list and add these lines at the end:

Also, I see that you only have one DVD registered in the sources list.
Run in the konsole as root apt-cdrom, am put every DVD in your DVD-ROM to register the packages from your DVD's (the easy way: synaptic-> Settings -> Repositories an press Add CdRom for every single DVD you have for Debian 4.0r3 etch).

Afterwards:
Run Synaptic to install or update anything.

Have fun and ask if u need anymore help

Cheers!

The suggestions given in the other posts are good. No reason to HAVE to deal with .deb or .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 packages. However, there are ways to handle them, so in case you still want to know how, here is how. For .deb packages, you have to assume root administrator privileges before you can operate on deb files. You can do that by running the command su and providing the root password, you can run the command sudo followed by an command, then provide the root password at a prompt, or you can login as root.

To directly install a .deb package that you have downloaded onto your local system, from root (using any method above or whatever other mechanisms may be available) type:

dpkg -i package-name.deb

To build a .tar.bz2 file into an application, you may not need to become root as long as you can install it into a directory within your home user account. You can, if you wish, install a Firefox.tar.bz2 file right into a Firefox directory beneath ~, your home directory.

tar xvf firefox.tar.bz2 (use whatever file name you downloaded). To get a .tar.gz file, you can optionally add the z flag, eg. tar zxvf firefox.tar.gz. To do the same with a .bz2 file, use the j option instead of the z option. Recent experiments with the latest version of GNU tar indicate that you no longer need to specify the extract compression type - tar will figure it out from the file name, which is why tar xvf works. x specifies to extract a file, v specifies that you want to see a display of each file in the archive (omit this if you do not want to see what tar is extracting) and f to specify the file, which is the next argument.

On the dpkg command, -i installs the named package. The dpkg tool is the underlying tool used by apt-get, aptitude, kpackage, synaptic, and other Debian package managers.

I hope this extra information adds to your understanding of handling different types of installation packages. With Debian, since it has such a full repository of applications, you need not use these techniques unless you want to bring in software from other sources as well as the default Debian binaries.

If I can be of further help or if I can clarify anything that is confusing, do not hesitate to write back.

Well it took me a while to come back and I am sorry for that. Thank you for your advice. Forgive the constant questions ( I guess that is the burden of a newbie) BUt how do you access the source list to edit it LordAnta?
Masinik I tried your advice with the kopete package (which is a deb and it did not work) maybe something to do with installing the kde package as LordAnta mentions?
I opened terminal and logged as sudo typed /etc/apt/sources.list and told me that permission was denied. Apparently I am not logged as root I also tried sudo su but then message was that I will be reported for lack of authorization ( reported to whom ? My mom? this is my pc and I installed the OS!!!!! lol)

su
nano /etc/apt/sources.list


.

or

or

Kopete is part of the KDE window manager. If you want to run it you need to have: kdelibs,qt and another package from kde.