I downloaded the DivX for Linux drom the official DivX site. The file comes in a tar.gz file. I have ungizzped the file to a directory but now am wondering what the next step is.

There is no rpm file and no apparent executable file. There is an install.sh file but i have no idea what to do with it.

I am using SuSE 8.2 Live Evaluation.

Hi!

I downloaded the driver and I think you must run the install.sh script to get the
installation done. Since there are only .h and .so files in the package, it is the only possibility I see.

Hope this helps!

How do I run the scripts?

# chmod +x install.sh
# ./install.sh
if there's no install.sh file then post the list of diretory contents

A script is like an executable.

Just type
./install.sh

in the directory where it is located and it should work.

Thanks arobic.

So what other type of extensions are "executables"?

And does the ./ run them all?

There is njo such thing as an 'extension' in Unix. What make a file executable is the permission (as sansy mentionned) and the nature of the file itself, which you can get by reading the first line of a script for example or if the file is a binary file. (A script is just shell code, it is readable with a text editor and it is not a binary file)

For example, in your case, the first line of the script is:
#!/bin/bash

which simply means that it is a bash script.

And the only reason why we run it using './install.sh' is to avoid confusion between executables. By typing this, you specify a path for the command ( . means the current directory).

BTW, 'sh' is only a kind of standard for bash script. You can also have ".csh" for example which are another kind of script. But remember that the extension really have no meaning other than informing you of the content of the file. I could have called the script 'foo.bar" and make it run as a executable!