I have had a dual boot linux xp for around 8months and i still can't figure out how to install a program.

Please Help.

Win Xp Pro - Fedora Core 3

For the easier route, I'd go with rpm's. It's pretty simple:

rpm -ivh <package_name> = will install the package
rpm -Uvh <package_name> = will update the package or install it if none exists
rpm -qa = query all packages that are installed on the system

Later on once you get more familiar with linux and whatnot, I'd prefer installing them by compiling them as you can specify options, prefixes, and etc..

-twantrd

OK do i need to place the program in a certain directory.
AND how do i run it once it's installed

For the tar.gz some pretty common commands are:

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz
cd filename/
./configure
make
make check
make install

although you want to check the INSTALL file for details.

When i try to install, all i get is:
------------------------------------------
[root@localhost root]# rpm -ivh bittorent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch.rpm
error: open of bittorent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch.rpm failed: No such file or directory
------------------------------------------
I am trying to install bittorrent so i can get FC3 (not so i can download illegally) because i always download about 3x faster than in http:

Well,installing software thru binaries is all very fine,but it limits the configurations which are possible by installing thru source.Usually source code is archived as tar.gz or tar.bz2.
To untar a gzip archive,do
tar xzf xxx.tar.gz or tar xzf xxx.tgz
for a bzip2 archive
tar xjf xx.tar.bz2

Usually installing involves doing a configure by running the configure script by typing ./configure --options

Then the compiling is done by the make command and finally you do a make install.
These instructions may vary depending on the program.Just read the install procedures provided with the package to get the program specific methods.

I am very loosely understading you, can you go a little simpler in words.
I have no idea what i'm doing in linux when installing things

either the file is not in the current directory, there is no file, or you're spelling it wrong - you can use tab completion by typing the first few letters of the filename and hitting tab to fill in the rest. use "ls" to make sure the file is in the dir you're issuing the command

this may help:

https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/...de/ch-rpm.html

I still can't get it to work.
What directory dose the file need to be in?
I Still keep getting
----------------------------
[root@localhost root]# rpm -ivh bittorent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch
error: open of bittorent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch failed: No such file or directory
----------------------------
what am i doing wrong.
The file is under /root/desktop/
i am logged in as root.

Do pwd to see what directory you're in (looks like /root). You can change to the desktop directory by doing "cd /root/desktop"). or simply do:

rpm -ivh /root/desktop/bittorent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch.rpm

So now im kinda expermenting
this is what i did and got
----------------------------------
[root@localhost root]# rpm -i bittorrent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch.rpm
warning: bittorrent-3.4.2-1.1.fc2.rf.noarch.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 6b8d79e6
[root@localhost root]#
----------------------------------


Whats it mean?

I got it installed using

rpm -i bittorentblahblahblah

now it says its installed,

were is it and how do i run it

I seem to be in the same position as scripts
Having been through Xandros & Ubuntu in past 2 days, I am currently installing Debian... still trying to find a distribution that won't be too stressful on a windoze user.

When I had Ubuntu running, I downloaded Thunderbird to & after much searching on the internet, managed to find out how to do this:
tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz
cd filename/
./configure
make
make check
make install

but it just installed it into the folder it had been uncompressed to.
Doesn't linux create program folders in a central place, e.g. I see what appear to be the original installations are stored in /etc.

Also (another dumb windoze question coming up) how does one start the program after it's installed? Nothing appears in the list of programs installed (as in windoze)
By sheer good luck, I managed to find a file in the folder that allowed me to use Thunderbird, but that's obviously not the way to do it.
There seems to be this enormous chasm that windoze users need to jump across to learn linux ... does anybody know of a site that might be able to help bridge the gap?
All contributions gratefully received
jennyb

just type bittorrent from the command line or start->run program ...

To find the exact location of where it lives, type It works with other commands too

Hello,
This was quite confusing for me as well. It looks like you installed programs in your home directory (i.e. /home/ygarl/ in my case) but generally it compiles things in your Home then uses cp (or 'copy') to generally put its components where they generally tend to need to go.
'make' compiles the program, 'make install' then puts the compiled bits in the right directories (USUALLY!). You can also run a 'make clean' afterwards to get rid of all the leftover bits you don't need to run the program afterwards (compiling work files, etc etc)

To find them easily - run 'updatedb'. This takes a few minutes to run, but takes an inventory of everything in Linux. It only updates its database when you run this so it won't know you installed anything new until you do.
Then run 'locate <whatever you are looking for>' and you should be able to find what you're looking for. Usually, things get installed in /usr/bin, /usr/local/, /usr/bin/local/, etc. I definitely don't recommend installing things as Root unless it absolutely definetely has to be done (Kernel things, firewall/security software etc like GuardDog - excellent program btw once you figure out what the ports all your fave software uses are!).

You're MUCH better off logging in as a user btw, typing 'su' and your root password just before you do 'make install'. There's just too much stuff that can be (permanently - at least unless you reinstall Linux) messed up when you're looged on at Root.