I clicked the downloaded program under downloads, another window box popped up
called 'extract' I clicked it there again then another window popped up called 'extract' (2nd time), I clicked the downloaded program again and this time nothing happened.
What am I doing wrong here?

Why is it so hard to run an exe on linux?

Choose to just save the program. If it's a tar.gz, then If it's a tar.bz2, then change the z to j. Go into the directory named after the program you just extracted, and type:Then run the program. I hope it's not an exe, because those are Windows programs.

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*.exe files are Windows executables. They do not work on Linux. It's like trying to fly across the Atlantic in an Formula One racer. Both vehicles may go fast, but they only work in their own environments.

Furthermore, if you want to install a program on Debian, the best way to do so is to use the Debian software repositories. Software installation is one of the ways in which Linux differs most drastically from Windows.

This article from the Debian wiki will tell you more. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPackageManagement

What program are you trying to install.

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I was trying to install Tor (for Linux)

Neither, its tar.xz; I'm trying to install Tor for Linux (its not a exe though).

It doesn't matter whether it's .gz, .bz2 or .xz. They're all just different zip formats. xz is the smallest of the three so package makers are switching to it. You unpack them all the same way. The latest versions of tar don't need the zip type to be specified in the arguments, so you can just use tar -xf filename and it will work for all zip types. The -v is for "verbose" and you don't really need that either.

However your questions show that you don't yet know enough about building software to go ahead without doing some reading. And you should first try to find tor and install it using your Debian package manager: either apt-get (on the command line) or synaptic (the graphical version). Building from source is for packages that your distro doesn't supply, and for people who at least have some basic idea of how the procedure works.

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If you just want to run Tor Browser (a safer configuration), download it from https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en and follow the Linux instructions on that page. Tor itself describes its browser: "If you want to use Tor for anonymous web browsing, please use Tor Browser. It comes with readily configured Tor and a browser patched for better anonymity."

If you want to install Tor and configure existing browsers etc on your Debian machine (which I assume you are using from your sidebar info), see https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en

Most software has instructions on how to install it, often on their web site. Tor is no exception.

Tor browser. is that not that anonymously web browser?

I looked into that a little while ago. It keeps the gov and others from seeing what you are doing. But I also read that if the gov is looking into your actives and see that you are using tor to keep anonymously in your life. then you get flagged. It is actually like putting up a great big red flag telling everybody to not look and see what you are doing. Which as human nature goes, that just makes them want to look at you even harder to see what you are doing.

kind of like how the gov has this program that they will not say yes we have it, that scans every email on the net looking for key words, if it gets a hit then you get flagged. if it sees an ip using tor it gets flagged. ;

Just saying. that is what I got from it when reading up on it.

to un pack it you can use ark or file-roller that will do that for you... as well

as far as running it ... it has a desktop file in there that you can use, it is all pre compiled.

Look at this and what is going on in England that can see what you've been doing on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YKRAxajtTk

$ tar -xJvpf <file>.xz
$ make

Although there should be a README or INSTALL type text file in the tarball to document "how" to install.

$ less README
or
$ more README

If it's not something that I'll be using long term or trust, then don't make install (as root). You can run most things as the user with a /full/path/to/bin. Although you may need special environment vars for libs depending on what you are running.

Check your distros repo, it might be super simple to install (and trust) with what you already have access to.

that next window is prob for asking you where you want to extract that file to. that is what ARK and File-Roller does. But, you'd be hard pressed to find an exe file for Linux that would actually run on Linux.

On Debian systems, you just install it with apt-get.

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You don't go to websites and download blobs to install on your machine with Linux (well you might, but it's very rare). That's how you get viruses and other malware. The fact that you HAVE to do that in order to install anything on Windows is a big reason why Windows gets infected and breaks so easily and so often. That's not how Linux works, it's not how any OS should work.

1) When you want to install a piece of software on Linux, you first go to the built-in package manager. If it has the package, install it from there, every single time, no exceptions. If you don't know how to use the package manager on your distro, then it's time to do some Googling and learn. The command line interface to the package manager on Debian is apt-get, I'm sure it has a GUI interface as well.

2) If the standard repos don't have the package you're looking for, see if there's a 3rd party repo that does. If so, and if you trust it, then add that repo to your system and then install using the built-in package manager like in #1.

3) Only if both of the above fails, should you even consider downloading a package straight from a website and trying to install it directly. And if you DO go that route, read the instructions. If there's no "README" or "INSTALL" file in the downloaded archive that tells you what needs to be done, then there should be documentation on the website. But again, and this is very important, this method should only be used as a LAST RESORT. It's very rare that you should have to do this, especially when using a distro with such a huge repo like Debian.

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Yes, it's called synaptic.
There I disagree. I would much rather build an application from scratch than add whole repositories permanently. They may be entirely trustworthy in the sense of not containing any malware but still contain libraries that are incompatible with your system. Then, some way down the line, your package manager could fail in subtle ways.

I agree that downloading and installing binary blobs is daft and not the Linux way, but getting source from an official project website and building it locally is usually safe provided you know enough about the process to read and understand the installation docs which are included. I don't think this OP does as yet.

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I'm sure Debian has a system for configuring repo priorities, does it not? If so that's an easy solution, just stick that repo at the bottom of the priority list and it'll never be pulled from unless it's the only provider of a given package.

For a one-off, sure, but get in the habit of going outside the repos and you can very quickly lock your system into a set of library and program versions that make it difficult, if not impossible to keep everything updated as time marches on. Not to mention the risk of accidentally installing a different version of a critical built-in program in the default location in order to satisfy a dependency, and bricking the entire system in the process (eg: C libraries, or anything Python-related on yum-based distros).

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