how to install applications WITHOUT a package manager or repositories
 

Hello linux users,
I'm a total linux noob as I just started out today by installing elementary. Well, I'm not really totally new to everything as I used Ubuntu before and used some very basic commands.
I consider myself a big newbie though as I have this simple problem:
I cannot install Skype.

I'm using the relatively new elementary os so things might be different here.
I downloaded the .tar.bz2 file from the Skype website. After extracting, I get a folder full of stuff. Obviously there is no executable setup. I found a README file though giving me the following instructions:
Well, I understand I should move these folders into these locations, but that won't make me able to run the actual program!

I spent a good amount of time on google and just found the following instructions:

• download it from the Software Center - it's not in there
• install a .deb or .rpm file using a package manager like Synaptic / dpkg - I have a .tar.bz2 file
• build it from source - I don't have the skype source

So now I got the Skype binaries here but no way to execute them.

Any help is very much appreciated because after this I still need to install the Java JDK and Eclipse! :D

Thanks for reading!

well, do be patient, I do remember just how frustrating what you are talking about can be.
one test would be (from a command prompt) try running

that will tell the shell to execute the program Skype in the current directory, note the command is case sensitive (./Skype and ./skype are two separate commands)
if that works, than as the document mentioned, copy the Skype binary to /usr/bin and creating a /usr/share/skype directory and recursively copying the aforementioned directories into it (cp -rv)

that being said there is an ubuntu package available from skype.com which should be a .deb, which then can be opened in the software center and installed.

Thank you! Unfortunately bash told me that the file couldn't be found. I cd'd my way to the correct directory for sure and there is a file called "Skype", but it's a desktop configuration file. There is also a file called "skype" which is a shared library. I guess that one is the actual program because it's 31.2 MB in size.

Is the .deb file going to run on elementary os even though it's made for Ubuntu?
Also I still need to install the JDK afterwards and got up to this point where they just tell me to "Unpack the tarball and install the JDK"...
Thanks again!

So I managed to get Skype running now. I just downloaded a .deb file for Ubuntu and double-clicked on it. Software Center opened up and downloaded (???) and installed Skype. Weird, because I couldn't find it in the Software Center before. Anyway, Skype is working but I'm still "looking forward" to Eclipse and the JDK.

Alright, nevermind. I actually managed to get everything installed now. Thanks!

Not sure if gdebi is available in Ubuntu but, if it is you can download a .deb file right-click on it select gdebi & it will install it for you.