'make' Red Hat 9
 

I'm very new to linux and I've been downloading tar.gzs and it says I have to make them and I found the make file but anytime I try to exectue it, it will not work. The main reason I need this is for ndiswrapper and wireless tools anyone have any insight to this, thanks in advance

Extract the tar.gz file to some directory, cd to that and try these three commands:

that's how stupid I am that I don't know what you mean by cd

Sorry :D I assumed you knew some DOS commands...
Right-click on the .tar.gz file, there will be some option like Extract... When you have extracted it to some folder, open that folder and start a terminal there (from the Tools menu if I'm right) In the terminal, execute those three commands that I mentioned before...

cd stands for "change directory"
If you type that without any arguments (I mean just cd, it will change the directory to your home directory - which would be /home/username or /root in case you're logged in as root. cd directory_name will switch to the folder directory_name inside the current directory. . stands for your current directory, .. for the parent directory. pwd would give the name of your current directory. Now you know how to navigate to the directory to which you extracted it using the terminal :)

We don't believe that you are stupid.....

cd is the command to change directories. Sooner or later in Linux, you will need to learn the command-line interface (CLI). It is not a scary monster....;)

Go into your main menu(s) and find "terminal". On my Redhat it is in Applications-->System Tools. Yours may be different, but it IS there somewhere.

When the terminal window opens, type "ls -l" (the l is not a one). You are now looking at the directories and files in your home directory. Pick something that is a directory (d at the beginning of the entry), and type "cd name" , where name is the filename in the entry. Now you are in the new directory. To go back, type "cd ..", or simply "cd".
End of lesson one...
To learn all the commands available, there are many methods, including trial and error. You can get a glimpse by typing "help", or "info coreutils"
Eventually, you will want to read a manual. I recommend "Bash Guide for Beginners" by Machtelt Garrels. It is a free download from the Linux Documentation Project (TLDP)

okay when I try to do the configure this is what happens
[root@mshome root]# cd pygtk-~1.0
[root@mshome pygtk-~1.0]# ls
aclocal.m4 config~1.gue instal~1 pango-~1.def pygtk~1.spe
atk~1.def config~1.in install pango~1.ove pygtk.py
atk~1.ove config~1.win ltihooks.py pangoc~1.c pygtks~1.in
atkmod~1.c config~2.in ltmain.sh pangoc~1.def readme
atk-ty~1.def config.sub makefile.am pangoc~1.ove setup.py
authors copying makefile.in pangom~1.c tests
change~1 depcomp manifest.in pkg-info threads
change~1.pre docs mapping pkg-info.in todo
change~2.pre dsextras.py missing py-com~1
codegen examples mkinst~1 pygobj~1.in
compile gobject news pygtk-~1.in
config~1 gtk pango~1.def pygtk_~1.py
[root@mshome pygtk-~1.0]# ./configure
bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
[root@mshome pygtk-~1.0]# make
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.
[root@mshome pygtk-~1.0]# make install
make: Nothing to be done for `install'

There's something weird going on there with all those '~1's... if you still have the tar.gz archive, try extracting it again (using tar xzf filename.tar.gz).

As another pointer, if you're using Red Hat, you'd probably have much less trouble using rpms to install software. Whilst it is sometimes necessary to compile from source code (that's what's in those tarballs, which is what we call tar.gz files), most software you can download as an RPM and just install using rpm -i filename.rpm.