ok, first of all, what is the name of the file? we need to know the extension - if it's .rpm, .tar.gz, etc.
since you mentioned something about a config file i'll assume tar.gz.
Code:
cd /root/Desktop
tar xvvzf kopete-0.9.0.tar.gz
cd kopete-0.9.0
./configure
make
make install
you shouldn't need to install things as root and use the /root directory. usually installing them as user and in the /home/user directory is better. of course in the example above you should replace any names i gave with the actual ones. since i don't have enough info about your problem this is just a guess, so report back with more info.