How to Intall stuff with Linux
 

Okay, I searched and could not find an answer to my question so I am probably asking the wrong question or too broad a question...but here goes anyway.

How do you install stuff with Linux? FC5?
Let me narrow that down...

I am trying to install unshield to extract some stuff from a .cab file (partly for wifi, partly because I want to learn). The problem is that I don't know how to install the program from the unshield-0.5.tar.gz that I downloaded. I googled the heck out of it and all I can find is links to download it off several sites, but no install instructions. I was able to unpack it both by command line (tar -zxvf [filename]) and with the GUI. I ran some random things by double clicking in the GUI and typed make [stuff] with the command line, but still nothing. So now that I probably dirtied up my FC5 install I will keep experimenting and just reinstall when I know what is going on.

That being said, how does installing stuff with linux work anyway? There is no x:\Program Files. What do executable files look like (do they end with .exe)?

I am sure this question is avery large, but I can hopefully find smaller questions and answers from your replies.

Thanks!!

Don't use tar.gz files unless you have to. Fedora Uses a package manager called YUM that will download and install most programs for you.

yum install unshield

Check out the Fedora FAQ and look up some yum HOW-TO's
http://www.fedorafaq.org/

I have heard of yum, but I have no Internet connection yet (trouble with wifi).
Even with yum, I would still like to learn how to extract and build and make and that sort of thing.

Compiling Programs from Source -
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...ms_from_Source

The Unofficial Fedora FAQ
http://www.fedorafaq.org/

I do compiling from source and installing all the time at work. Generally what I do is this:

Keep all of your source tarballs in a standard location, ie. /usr/src/packages/tarballs something to that effect. You'll have go into /usr/src and do a "mkdir -p packages/tarballs". cp your gzipped tarball into the tarball directory.

The next thing you want to do is go back into the /usr/src/packages dir and do "tar -zxlf tarballs/$PACKAGE.gz" where $PACKAGE is the name of the source tarball you downloaded. This will usually create a folder for the unpacked source right there in /usr/src/packages.

cd into that directory and get a good look at the contents. Generally, most source can compile with automake tools so there is generally a script in there called configure which you use to create a makefile to compile the source with appropriate parameters. You'll want to read anything that says INSTALL or README* whatever and if those tell you to go to docs/* follow the advice and go read that stuff. Generally these provide you with extra guidance and will show you how to compile in features that are alot of times disabled by default. You may also run into configure or compile time errors and for this google can be your best friend.

Generally the routine way is to do the following: ./configure;make;make install. "make" compiles the source into binary files and the "make install" will put them in the appropriate spots. The default location to install stuff like this is /usr/local although you can specify anywhere you want using the --prefix= during the ./configure part. I recommend staying with /usr/local as default though if you're only doing it for the local machine.

Question Answered
 

Thanks. My question has been answered for now. I was able to install unshield and it preformed properly.