General Linux Question from a windows user
 

Hey everybody....

I am a newbie on this board and also to linux....

Well i dont have linux yet and am using a windows machine, but i wanted to research things about linux before i make the switch.

First off i have heard really good things about ubuntu linux....any thoughts?

I also have some questions about linux being a stupid windows user that i am...

1. What are rpms ? are these like exes? and do all distros of linux use rpms ?

2. Also...are superuser and sudo the same thing? ie...su on some distros and sudo on other distros ?

3. Oh yeah....with desktop managers such as KDE and gnome, are there only specific programs you can use with each desktop. hmmm...if that doesnt make sense this might help......can i use any program for linux with any desktop?

4. I have also seen linux programs but they always say for debian , etc....so i cannot use those programs because they are for specific distros or can i still use them?

Thanks in advance everybody.

Poonaninja



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ninja in the night
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a couple things here -- there is no real equivalency to an 'exe' -- linux does not use file extensions like windows. any file can be 'executed', but only binary files or scripts are similar to a windows executable file.

an rpm is a package... i believe the term comes from 'redhat package manager', but don't quote me... this is most certantly not like a windows '.exe' file. A package in linux is similar to an install program in windows. -- a package will attempt to install a program, or the contents of the package. Packages/program installation are a major hump for non-linux users to get over to be comfortable in the environment. This is not helped by the fact that different distrobutions use different packaging systems, all with their pros/cons, and some distros don't really have anything. and then there's compiling from source...

su
have you ever run winNT? -- are you familiar with the 'Administrator' role in windows?
linux has a user called 'root' which plays God over a system. root has unlimited access to the system, and weilds power to do/control everything. running 'su' will log a user in as root, while sudo will execute a program as root. [edit]note here that su can log in as different users -- 'su betty' will prompt for betty's password, unless you 'su betty' while root - no password prompt.[/edit]

kde/gnome/etc
linux = choice. most programs will be able to run under different window managers, but some are compiled to utilize specific features of x-wm, and those are the ones which you will find trouble running under different WMs

hope that gets you started...

Redhat Package Manager files ... it's one way
of making software distribution packages.

No

Thanks goodness no, again :)
Ubuntu, since it's debian based, will use deb packages.


Superuser is a user-account.

su and sudo are two programs.

su stands for switch user, and sudo can be
interpreted as "do as superuser". They have
different functionalities, and you should (if you
do lots of administrative tasks) make your life
easier by setting up sudo :)


That's most commonly only a thing of "easy install", sometimes
a version of a program depends on a certain library it's compiled
against ...


Cheers,
Tink

gnome and kde provide certain system libraries that some applications need to run. if you install gnome and kde, you will be able to use any desktop enviroment with kde and gnome applications, it will not be a case of you can only run a gnome application with the gnome desktop.

packages made for specific distrobutions are almost always available in their source version, so you can compile them to run with other distrobutions.

www.freshmeat.net is a good place to locate software in it's source form.

when just starting, get yourself a mainstream distrobution. It'll be easy to install and will have more bugs ironed out of it than something newer or more propietary. I would suggest Fedora or Debian. and I would suggest just installing it and seeing what happens, rather than trying to find the perfect distro and perfect setup.

Thanks everybody !

So...rpms are install packagers....what if there is no install packagers for a certain distro ? can you take an rpm and extract the source from it?

So, its a good idea to keep both KDE and gnome for iteroperability with most programs ?

In windows, you have to pretty much use administrator for everything. Can you install with a normal user or go do it as root ? or sudo ?

And if a particular distro is based on another distro (ie..ubuntu from debian), can you use the base distro's(debian, slackware,etc) packages ?

Thanks everybody.


EDIT : how do you install programs in linux?

To install new programs you'll download either a file that says program .bz2.tar or program .gzip.tar

These are compressed files. I don't remeber the commands off the top of my head to install a new program (I refer to one of my books for that) but basically you have the source code and by using a series of commands it will install the program under any linux distro.

Some one please post installation instructions since without them it just sounds like I'm rambling.

Thanks Zuggy...Doyou have to unzip it then install it? or does the install program unzip it itself?

Some one post how to install --> that'd be good.

Also, in my university, a prof sends notes as exe (some paperport thing that opens up notes from a program). Do you think i can open these in wine?

Side note [to zuggy] : hope your laptop restoration goes well. Also you are one of the few people who like classical music ;) Try out music from this site : http://www.hudsonstudios.net
composer who has all his music on his site...very good stuff...

End Side note..

Poonaninja

I would include the instructions but I have temporarily misplaced my pocket reference guide. I do know that uncompressing the files is done at the same time as the installation. Once you get it memoraized it's really easy (or so I hear my memory isn't all that great).

something.tar.gz <your file should look something like this

#gunzip something.tar.gz <unzip

something.tar <what the file should look like now

#tar -xvf something.tar <unpackaging

cd something <change to the newly xtracted directory

ls <to list the files extracted

./configure <generally you'll find this one in the file list and checks dependancies and config

make <compile the code

make install <installs to the default location within the file structure



Hope I helped

Thanks synonymy.

Let me see if i get this straight,

To install tar.gz : unzip, untar, compile, make install.
To install souce : compile, make install
To install binary (is that what they are called?) : make install

if it is a program like kword or something, do i just install it someplace (anywhere?) or do i have to put it in a specific place so the system can acess it?

Thanks for all the help everybody!!

Poonaninja

hello,
i'm also a newbie and i'm also learning about installation in linux. i wanted to install kopete-0.9.0 and downloaded it and extracted it. the first steps were fine but in ./configure i got this
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking for -p flag to install... yes
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
(blablablabla).....
(blablablabla)....
.(blablablabla)....
(blablablabla)....
.....
.....
checking for X... configure: error: Can't find X includes. Please check your installation and add the correct paths!

how do i correct this?

One question was about uninstalling packages (tarballs).

It's a good idea to save the original somewhere, because often you can
uninstall the program by cd'ing to the source directory and typing:
make uninstall.

Before you try 'make install' or 'make uninstall' you need to su to root.

The distro's come with loads of software. There is a good chance that the software you are looking
for is already included as an RPM or DEB package.

The mirror sites often have 'Contrib' sections that include programs not included in the downloads.

hi jschiwal,

I tried doing as su but i still get the same thing. anyway, su shouldn't be required until "make install" isn't it?
and yes, i found that kde site has kopete0.8.0 rpm, and that was what i was using before. but i am looking for 0.9.0 because i cannot sign in in yahoo with the older one. i tried searching rpm for the newer one but could not find it. also i want to familiarise myself about installing and installing programs in linux.

pranij.

That is correct. You don't need to be the root user until before the 'make install' step. This is because this step will copy files into protected directories, such as /usr/bin, /usr/lib, and copy the manpages as well.

I mentioned it because it was left out of one of the responses.

Because uninstalling the software (make uninstall) will remove the files added earlier, you need to be the root user then also.

Be careful that the libraries installed are not later depended on by later installations. Another reason to hold on to the source.

An rpm package will take care of dependencies. Some people use a program which performs the first 2 steps and then produces an rpm package. Then they use rpm or the distro's installation program to install the software. This keeps the information in the rpm database current.

wow, i see there is plenty of help here, and i only skimmed all the replies, but i saw mention to extraction that wasn't complete, so:

notes on extraction--
a tar.gz or .tgz
--these have had two compressions applied - tar, and gzip (GNU zip? -- no idea)

you can extract these in one step by running
tar.bz2
--same idea, different final compression -- you'll need bunzip2 to reveal the tar archive.
those are the most common archives, check the man pages for explination of options, etc.

My advice for a windows user is this:

1. Try Knoppix, a live cd version of Linux, so you can try it out and see if you like it before doing anything drastic. This makes no changes to your hard drive and current windows installation.

2. When you're ready to make the switch... I've had good experiences with Debian and Mandrake Linux. First of all, Debian is incredibly easy if you want to install things. You just type one line into the terminal window and it'll find all of the dependencies and whatnot for you. I now run Mandrake 10 - whenever I need software, chances are it's somewhere on the three discs. You just select the program from a list and place the correct CD in the drive, in a minute you've got it ready to go. Of course, this doesn't help you with new or obscure programs that aren't in this list... still not a big problem. I find that nearly all of my software needs are satisfied with the three discs that come with Mandrake (with the notable exception of Firefox!!!).

No matter which distribution you use, or which problems you run into, just remember the url of this forum! You'll be able to work through nearly any problem with the helpful people here.

Baltika

All of the other users seem to have given complicated instructions.

You dont need to run it through 2 different unzipping programs its like this

Ex:

something.tar.gz

command would be

tar -xzvf something.tar.gz

something.tar.bz2

tar -xjvf something.tar.gz

hope that makes it easier

and if its the source code and not a static binary(meaning the program is already compiled)

you would first cd to the directory for example

cd something

then ls

look for something like a configure file then run the file like this

./configure

then after all that is done do this

make

after it has compiled itself and what not you need to install the rest of it to where it goes so become the super user

su
password

then

make install

that should be it

Thanks for all the replies (this is an awesome board for n00bs !)

Okay...just a few more questions-

Sovietpower was talking about a binary - this is completely compiled and needs no make install, right?

And do you just install the programs wherever you want or is there a specific place for that?

Thanks everybody

poonaninja

Correct.. binaries come precompiled, and they decide where they install. Some have options on where they put themselves, but most are written to install in their default locations for the distro you are using.

Excuse my stupidity, but, there are specific places where the user can write documents and stuff /home i think....

Is thare a specific place to put programs that you compile and install yourself ??

Thanks

Poonaninja

Another question : I read somewhere that linux is the most hacked system ever.....any truth to this ??

Thanks everyone?

hacking is sometimes used to mean 'hobbying'. so people who do a particular activity in a non-professional capacity are referred to as 'hackers'.

it's a slang thing. local / cultural / time-based resolution of the meaning may vary. so linux being the most hacked system ever, well what did the person mean by 'hacked' ?

that just means that Linux is the system that has had the most people working around problems and such. Not that it is attacked by crackers alot, that honor belongs to M$.

dudes, one question about installing

i know that progs "make install" their libraries and dependencies to creapy locations that shouldn't be touched like /usr/bin and /usr/lib, but the program itself, where could i install it? /usr/local? /usr/etc or just home?

For the life of me, i cannot find the article again. Well, it good to hear that its not the most hacked.

Oh and another question , how do you mount a usb drive??

I am confused by the naming conventions of the mounted drives (like hda1, hdb1 , etc....) Can someone explain this??

Thanks a lot everybody!!

Poonaninja

Oh..yeah.....i am also interested in the question asked above by agentDukey...confuses me a bit.....

RPM files will automatically install where they were meant to go by the packager.

Code that you ./configure and make (compiled) if no errors can be run from the directory at which they were compiled. Usually you will find a file named after the software that can be run by typing ./namehere . Where the ./ tells the machine to find it within the current working directory. If you were to su and as root type make install, it will copy all the necessary files usually to a directory at where the system is commonly set up to search and find those executable files such as the /usr/bin directory. If /usr/bin is within the search "path" of the operating system, any executable within that directory can be run from any working directory in a terminal without using the ./ first. So, in essence, you could test the software in the directory you compiled it, or use it like I commonly do within my home directory for some softwares. The real downfall I have found to the different types of installation methods and packaging is that when trying to compile certain softwares. I often have had errors at where the software to compile cannot see or work along rpm based type. I plan to try other distributions for ease reasons. Any way, hope this helps some.

Wow, that was a nice clear, consise answer....So let me get this straight to make sure i am not stupid and got it wrong.

I can compile it anywhere maybe /temp (or a folder for its source ??) and then the program is in the folder. You can run it from there or you can sudo and make install and then the system will copy the program into a folder where the programs knows where it is. Then the system knows where the program is. And by typing the name in a terminal, can run it.

RIGHT???

Thanks Synonymy ! :) ;)

Poonaninja

Ok, I install all my compiled programs (those from .bz2 or .tar) into the /opt directory. It will put the relevant files where they need to go. An example:

say you download xxx.gz to your home directory.
cd /home/user
mv xxx.gz /opt
cd /opt
tar xzvf xxx.gz
cd xxx(directory created when the file was uncompressed, run ls if you don't know what it's called)
./configure
make
su
(enter root password)
make install (this is the step will install all the pertinent parts to the various directories /etc, /usr/, etc.)

Don't put anything in /tmp. Now depending on what distro you use, they can install them to different spots. Keep in mind when that when using certain distros, use their native tools to install things. Fedora core use yum. Slackware use installpkg or pkgtool. Debian use apt (this has been ported to other distro like Suse and Fedora). Gentoo has portage. Mandrake use urpmi.

Another nice answer...Thanks

Okay, I am thinking about getting ubuntu as my first distro...
Since this is based on debian, i can use the debian distro (.deb), right??

This means i dont have to worry about where it installs, right?
This is like an installer in windows which puts itself in the right directories, correct?

Not really an installer. It will install the packages and install the proper dependencies. It does work in the same capacity. There no real equivalents as far a file system hierarchy goes between linux and windows. They are just 2 differnt philosphies. If you want to go with debian, take a look at MEPIS. There is a very recent review of it at http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3135712364.html

use that as a guide and get a copy of distro. Do you know how to do that? If not, you can buy them from the Mepis site: www.mepis.org

As always check and use the forums to your advantage.

well, i personally use slackware, it's my biggest friend and enemy ;) just creeps me out sometimes but i love it when it's just functioning well

btw, wouldn't it be wiser if i would install all programs to folders which are shared? i mean like, if user1 installs everything in his home directory then user2 can't access the progs when he logs in

If user 1 was to install a program into his own home directory user 2 would have to be able to have ececuteable and probly read access as well. On top of that, user 2 would have to know where it was in order to execute it if it were not in the "path".