I have downloaded a few programs tar and rpm and have installed them to my mandrake distro. I am having problems with doing tar installs from the command line. I gunzip the file then use tar xvf for the file then change to the directory it made, this is where I start having problems. I have started moving these files to /usr/ local/ diredtory before starting at the command line. after using the tar command I change to the directory it creates and try
./configure make makeintall. but I always get some sort of error. sometimes it tells me to install and I try that and it says to check install --help which brings up a page of instructions which confuses me even more. I would appreciate any help I can get thanks ahead of time

I usually get the program to work by using super user (file manager)
going to home directory where the file I need to start the install is usually located and click on it. I have been fortunate that this has worked for me but I would like to be able to do it all fromt the command line. thanks again

What program are you installing?
Exactly what error messages do you get?

please search the site for a huge amount of information about installing software

try "./configure && make && make install" (with a space between make and install in the last one.... that's not how you typed it up there)

I also heard mandrake has problems with compiling source since the libraries are in non-standard places. Why not stick with RPM since mandrake is supposed to use only RPM?
-NSKL