Being new to Linux and Terminal I would greatly appreciate your help on the subject. An example: I would like to download, extract and begin using a downloaded application or file after completion of the whole process. What I would like to see are the Terminal commands used, the steps they are used in and a description of the meaning of each Terminal command for a "typical" download.

What I mean by comparison is Windows (which is very easy to use), Linux Mint process is more complex (well until I get a better understanding of it).

Could you recommend a good manual that is geared towards a "newbie"?

Thanks

This is really confusing. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to figure out how to install applications? Or how to build applications from source? What do you mean by a "typical download"? Please be specific.

This is actually a broader subject than you know.

I don't use Mint but I gather from reading it uses Apt/Dpkg for its package manager. This is common for Linux distros based on Debian. The following link is a primer for using Apt/Dpkg for Debian itself so should be helpful for Mint:

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/1...r-for-new.html

Some things are NOT in deb packages (or rpms for RedHat based LInux distros, or other package managers for other systems) but rather in "tar" or "tgz" bundles. Many of these require you to compile them. Usually these bundles will have README files (sometimes more than one) which are ascii text files that tell you what to do with them. Generally these packages have the following steps:
1) Download the package
2) Make a directory to extract the package in (e.g. /tmp/extract) with "mkdir /tmp/extract".
3) Extract using the tar command. For example if your download was in /root and called newstuff.tgz you'd:
a) cd /tmp/extract
b) tar xvf /root/newstuff.tgz
4) Review any and all README files now in /tmp/extract for more details.
5) Usually next step is simply to type "configure" which will check your installation for necessary and optional packages to determine how to compile the new package.
Configure will likely give you messages about things not being there that it is skipping - these are informational not necessarily errors - some things are required and some are optional.
6) Assuming the configure didn't fail your next step is usually to run "make" which compiles the source code (files with .c suffixes generally) in binaries (executables and librarieis).
7) After that you'd need to put the files where you want them (common locations are /usr/local and /usr/share). Often there will be the ability to run "make install" to put things in default locations.
Again the key is to read the README information for the bundle as the steps can vary for each bundle.

The Linux Mint Official User Guide is a good place to start:

http://www.linuxmint.com/documentation.php

See the chapter on "Software Management."

er, I think you are confusing some terms.You can download an iso image from the net and burn it to a cd/dvd, then install it to your system. If you must have Windoze then daul booting is easier on xp than say vista but you will have a great many programmes at your disposal that you would not have had under mac or Windozes.
If you want to use tar balls then fine but you can get most of what you might want from the package manager(s).

Fred.

I don't want to use Windows. I'm trying to "wean" myself off of Windows 7. OK,here is a specific example of what I would like to achieve. In Windows 7 I can take a YouTube video, down load it then convert the file (strip the video content) to mp3 (using "anyDVDConverterter") then catalog the audio track to a file folder containing many tracks, as an example 100 songs. Then burn those 100 tracks to several CDs through one process using a program (in this case Media Monkey). It can in one operation, handle multiple CDs adding the track and album titles.

In the example I've given, two programs, "anyDVDConverter" and "Media Monkey" achieve the end result which is burn one or more CDs with track, title and album name information on each CD.

How can I achieve the end result as given in the previous sentence? Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

Wow, I did not get that from your original post at all!

Your best bet is to google "anyDVDConverter Linux alternatives" and "MediaMonkey Linux alternatives" and I'm sure you'll find many good suggestions.

However depending on which version of Mint you chose (Gnome, KDE, etc.), you will already have applications preinstalled for CD/DVD burning and for managing your multimedia. Have you tried using the built-in default applications yet to see if they'll satisfy your needs?

You'll achieve the same with soundKonverter and K3b on Linux (there are others too, of course) - these 2 are GUI applications.

Under my post heading "Download YouTube Audio?" in this forum I posed a similar question and got a good reply about using k3b. Unfortunately at the point "change the directory" I tried to and it said there was no such file and from that point on I was lost. As an example when using a command do I enter "# make" or "make". When I download the packages Qt and kdelibs, Ogg, Vorbis what do I do with them? Extract, compile? How do I compile? What utility do I need to accomplish that? What I need is the very specific steps in detail. Since I don't know what Qt, kdelibs, Ogg, Vorbis do in the scheme of things, yes I am lost.

^^^
No, you don't need to compile anything or touch terminal for any reason. You install them from menu (Software Centre in Ubuntu, presumably something similar in Mint) and then start them up as you would in Windows. Use soundKonverter to convert YouTube videos to mp3s and K3b to burn them to CDs with (incl. meta-data).

" Since I don't know what Qt, kdelibs, Ogg, Vorbis do in the scheme of things" - you don't need to know what they are as you don't need to touch terminal whatsoever to accomplish this task. Everything can be done from menu - installation, conversion, burning.

The "very specific steps in detail" are that the average user doesn't need to do any of that stuff. Linux Mint has easy-to-use graphical interfaces for ripping video, organizing your music collection, installing additional applications, etc. Did you read the Mint Users Guide I linked to in Post #4?

If you've already started a thread on ripping Youtube video using k3b then why did you not respond with additional follow-up questions/details to the people who already volunteered to help you in that thread?

Oops, sorry about that. Looks like I did get the answer I was looking for from klearview. I don't need to use terminal for any of the questions I've had. It's a moot point at this juncture. Sorry about the double post. I did in essence pose the same question in the other thread but got a different solution that used terminal. In the future I will not pose a question in more than one thread.