How to install and compile .tar.gz files on SuSE 8.2?
 

hi there,

i have a problem:
i downloaded a html editor (bluefish.openoffice.nl) as a tar.gz file and can't install it. i extracted the content of the archive into a new folder but i can't compile the files!!
the suse distribution i have is from a computer magazine CD, so it didn't come with any c and c++ compilers. then i downloaded and installed gcc (as an rpm package) and wanted to compile the files with a command a friend recently told me about: "./configure --prefix=/home/Jojo/bluefish".
then the terminal said the following (extracts):
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
[...]
checking for g++... no
checking for c++... no
checking for gpp... no
checking for aCC... no
checking for CC... no
checking for cxx... no
checking for cc++... no
checking for cl... no
checking for FCC... no
checking for KCC... no
checking for RCC... no
checking for xlC_r... no
checking for xlC... no
[...]
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... no
[...]
configure: error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails sanity check

can anyone tell me what to do? or how to make .rpm packages out of the .tar.gz's?

thanks!

Jojo

it looks like you have none of the development packages installed.
you should be able to find a precompiled copy of blowfish for your distribution.
that will be much easier than getting the rest of those things working.
that configure script you are using isn't going to do you any good.
and, install packages as the root user.
maybe the version of kpackage you have or the suse-package manager
has blowfish in it, and will download what you need, and install it for you.

The gcc compiler comes in a hell number of different rpm. You most likely also vant:
gcc-cpp
libgcc1
gcc-c++
gcc-java
make sure, the versions match that of you compiler.

Welcome to the free world

and he would also need a crapload of development packages and libraries for everything
that blowfish wants to link to.

ok, i've found the files lone_nut mentioned, but how do i install them? why can't linux files just have an installer with them??

oh, and when i tried to compile another file with ./configure, this worked fine (it seems that it only needed the C compiler and library), but then i entered, as shown in the doc, "make". But the console says that this command or filename is unknown. so what to do?

You also need make.
I don't believe you have any developer tools with your distribution. You may want to check a SuSE ftp site for a lot of the packages you're missing.

If/when you get a good collection of developer tools, installing applications from source will be a breeze.