Downloading software
 

Complete newby, please be patient ....

When downloading I get this error:

An error occurred when loading the archive:

Archive: /tmp/CNET_TechTracker_2_0_4_Setup.exe
[/tmp/CNET_TechTracker_2_0_4_Setup.exe]
End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
the last disk(s) of this archive.
zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of /tmp/CNET_TechTracker_2_0_4_Setup.exe or
/tmp/CNET_TechTracker_2_0_4_Setup.exe.zip, and cannot find /tmp/CNET_TechTracker_2_0_4_Setup.exe.ZIP, period.

I bet it's something quite trivial but my experience of life is I'd be ages stumbling upon solution myself.

Thanks for any help....

Welcome to LQ.
Are you trying to install windows software on linux?
That won't work.

Kind redgards

Files ending in .exe are normally Windows based binary executable files, however they may sometimes be self extracting archives. Without special software (WINE) Linux operating systems have no way to execute these files and cannot run the program for you. From a quick google search cnet tech tracker appears to be a program to keep some Windows software up to date. If you plan on deploying this on a Windows system then you can copy the .exe file to the Windows system and run it there. If you are looking for software to keep your Linux system up to date there should be something in the repository. For example in Fedora 15 you can run yum to update your software (everything installed from the repository).
Ubuntu also has similar software
I hope this helps you keep your system up to date.

Although I have looked for Ubuntu versions, now you point that out perhaps the example I gave was a poor one - I think I carelessly clicked on a thing meant for windows. I am just getting used to this!

If I find a link to what seems like a Linux version of something on the web, am I naive to think the download is so simple as to click?

This, also you can't open a .exe file with an archive program - the error message reads that you were trying to do something involving a.zip archive file - .exe is an executable file not an archive.

A quick search of the program (CNET tech tracker) lead me to the conclusion that there isn't a linux native version of it, I'm not really clear on what this particular piece of software does, but you'll need something like Wine to get it to work on linux. Depending on what it actually does it may not be all that useful on linux anyway though.

In general, when getting software for linux, especially if you're new, go through your distro's repositories - you should have an add/remove software option somewhere in your menus that allows you to download packages and install them simply and easily and most even handle dependencies for you. If the repositories don't work, you can try to find a package online (the type of package depending on the actual distro and package managment software) and if all else fails you can try to compile from source code if it's an open-source or free-software application.

Hope this helps!
It can be a tad confusing at first if you're coming over from Windows or Mac, but once you get use to it many people find getting and managing software on linux much better than doing it on Windows or Mac, so stick with it and you'll adjust.

Perhaps you can take a look at
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingSoftware

Kind regards

No. Downloading works the same way as it does in Windows (e.g. you click a link and you choose where you want to save the file). If you mean installing, however, then the process is different. See the links given by others in this thread.

Cheers folks.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to give help, I appreciate it.