I need a big long tutorial about installing software.

I need to know how, where should I install it to?

I downloaded firefox, I extracted the tar.gz, but where should I install it to?

how do I install a .run?

If it has x in ls -l (e.g.
)
./<blah>.run will run it ...

Otherwise just a
sh <blah>.run
will do ....


Cheers,
Tink

I installed Gaim with YaST, but I don't know where it installed it to. It didn't create any links. How do I get to it?

Did you download the firefox-installer or just plain firefox. If you downloaded the firefox installer, and have untarred it, just change into the firefox directory that was created when you untarred and run

$./firefox-installer

to install in your home directory or

$ su -c "./firefox-installer"

to install it system wide. When you are installing it system wide, make sure you also make a symbolic link to the firefox executable in /usr/bin so that you can just type "firefox" in console and it will run.

If you have downloaded the plain tar.gz without installer and untarred, you can just copy it to the directory where you want to run it from.

try running gaim in a console, if it works, create a desktop shortcut. I think it should also appear in your menu somewhere.

I typed gaim into the console and nothing...

Where do I execute these commands?

$ su -c "./firefox-installer" ??? I tried it in the console and it said unknown command.

Why does it have to be so none intuitive?

I don't understand the reasoning behind this OS. Why do they make it so difficult to install programs? There is no rhyme nor reason to anything it does! I'm about to give up and go back to Windows.

HELP!

OK, the firefox installation method is their fault. Having the target directory called firefox-installer is dumb. I put the directory under the /opt directory but named it /opt/firefox/ instead. I also created a link in /usr/bin for the firefox program. I also may have copied a library file, but I don't remember.
The system already had a firefox icon that I used to create a KMenu entry. I dragged the menu item onto the taskbar, which is what I use to start the program.

The gaim program should have a link in the menu structure somewhere. It may have a pseudo title such as 'instant messaging' instead.

The program itself is probably in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.
You could create a menu entry for it. There should be a 'Gaim' icon for both KDE and Gnome installed by default. Using YaST to install the Gaim rpm package should have set all of this up. I'm thinking that perhaps the installation wasn't successful for some reason or another.

Just after installing a program, If you want to see were brand new files are located, you could bring up the shell and type 'find /usr -cmin -4'.
This will show you new files located under the /usr hierarchy which were created in the last 4 minutes. Some of the files may include documentation or notes that may you might want to scan through.

Ok, I already have firefox installed in /opt/MozillaFirefox

how do I just update that version with the new version?

Gaim is nowhere in the menu structure.

You need to be in the firefox folder. Lets say you downloaded the firefox installer tarball in to /home/userid/downloads/src and you untarred it in there, you will have a folder called firefox-installer in there. Change into the firefox installer folder, so in our hypothetical cae you would be in /home/user/downloads/src/firefox-installer. You then do,

$su -c "./firefox-installer" (copy the command as it is apart from the dollar sign. The quotes have to be there for the command to work). You will be propmted for the root password, enter it and the installer will start.

I think we posted almost at the same time. I think you have to completely uninstall firefox and mozilla installations so that they don't interfere with each other, but I am not sure if I am totally right.

I found AIM

Why doesn't it create default links for all programs?

Wolfenstein: ET put a link in Menu>>Applications

Why don't all apps you install put a link there?

The mods are going to come to your house and slap you silly for using a title like that to start a thread.
Because you haven't read enough yet.
YaST is a point and click way to install software. It's as easy as anything out there.
Of course there is. Linux has been around for about 10 years and SUSE is one of the best distros. It's always frustrating for n00bs at first.

There's lot's of friendly people here who are willing to help. Sit back, relax, and take a deep breath. Then ask an intelligent question.

This isn't my first post. I realize there are a lot of nice people here, but I my head is about to explode because I am getting all these commands and jargon thrown at me.

Ok, how do you use YaST to install packages such as rpm, run, tar.gz?