how do u install a tarball?
 

I am using Linspire 4.5.393 and trying to install a tarball. Since I am a newb I have no clue where to begin. I have tried many commands in the terminal but none have seemed to work, or if they did I didn't know it. please give me a detailed step by step direction on how to do so. thank you and sorry for being a newb, but you gotta start somewhere. :)

if its in .gz :
tar -xvzf linuxquestions-perl.tar.gz

if its in .bz2 :
tar -xvjf filename.tar.bz2

or u could untar them with ark or just double click on it then copy its content to another folder

check out this :

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ticle&artid=15

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Tar

If you're that much of a newbie, you should Google up a copy of "Newbie's Linux Manual". I's a good source of info for the newest of newbie's.

what is wiki Linuxquestions.org? A clone of this site with uglier fonts? Odd...

I don't think Linspire comes with a C compiler, so you'll have problems when you try to compile programs from source (i.e. using ./configure or make). You should be okay to untar something, but I think you'll have problems trying to compile programs from source.

-Lucinda