I would have to say this is my biggest complaint at the moment about Linux and that is the difficulty of installing and using new software. I have several downloads but for the moment lets just consider Kdevelope. I have downloaded the file and extracted the files. When I switch to the new folder and type apt-get install, it says 0 files installed, 0 files updated..ect, in other words it does nothing with little indication of what the problem might be. Second..assuming I can get it installed, how do I get it added to the programming menu or applications menu in gnome? I am sure once I get the procedure down its the same for nearly everything but right now its confusing.

I can only speak for Mandriva, but the ease of installing software in that flavour of Linux is one of its many huge advantages over Windows.

From your syntax I would guess you're running Ubuntu or Debian, so I'm not sure whether they have repositories to set up like you do in Mandriva. If it does I'm willing to bet that's what the issue is.

In Mandriva if you install something, it automatically appears in the menu. I guess Ubuntu and Debian would be the same as Ubuntu especially is supposedly good for stuff like this.

Thats because you don't install a file that way, if you open your Synaptic package manager do a search for Kdevelope mark it for install then click ok , that's it.

Or open a terminal type sudo apt-get install Kdevelope give your passwd then let it do its thing.

What could be easier?

Edit: You can also install packages of the .deb type download the package cd into the dir, then type dpkg -i package.name.deb

You can install from source also but if your just starting in linux learn the package manager for your distro first.

Wow, that worked. It asked me to put my Ubuntu dvd in the drive for some reason, I guess some of the files were on there but didnt get installed in the original install. Everything I was reading was giving these detailed but complicated instructions for unpacking and running configure files, make files ect. And when I did try that I got error messages all over the place, but it was easy using Synaptic.

You don't install extracted tar.gz files with apt-get install,You have to compile that package with make and make install.There are usually readme files that tell you how to do it within the package.If you want to run KDE application under the GNOME be sure that you have necessary dependencies installed.If you are using Debian or Ubuntu for example,then first start to use Synaptic package manager,to see what packages are available,but first enable repositoryes that you wish.
You can edit your profile(here on the LQ) and enter distribution that you use,so that it would be easyer to solve your problems in the future.

You may want to read the documentation, something is misconfigured if you had to insert the DVD, normally everything is downloaded from repositories as needed. You may miss important security updates, too.

I've had several installs that will do that, he can just comment out the CD-Rom entry from the sources.list then do a sudo apt-get update and should be fine.

You will still need to learn how to download from source and install.
Sometimes the repository will not have the program you are looking for.
At that point you will need to download the <program>.tar.gz.

See this tutorial:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...ms_from_Source

Go to System>Administration>Software Sources>Ubuntu Software
and uncheck any entries starting with "cdrom," then reload the software lists.