I've managed to install GAIM that was an RPM (using the graphical interface) and GKrellM-1.2.12 that was a tar.gz, god I'm good... lol

Anyhow, there's something I'm not too clear about, when we install a package, where are the files installed, and what am I supposed to do with the installation file (gaim-0.58-1.i386.rpm)? Am I supposed too keep in somewhere on the HDD or can I just get rid of it?

Ok that was for RPM packages, what about compressed files (*.tar.gz/bz2), once they're decompressed and I used to command "make" or "make install", again what am I supposed to do with the files?

And where is the actual application stored when it's installed, it's not like in Windows where they're stored at a specific location (e.g. C:\Program Files\Application) and where the application should be loaded from is it?

you can delete the rpm files fine. in theory you should keep any source on your system in /usr/src for easy removal etc.

as to where programs go.. personally i never really understand why so many newbies as this question... i don't really see why it matters. each program will not get it's own directoy (excluding BIG things like Mozilla etc..) executables go in a bin directory /bin/ /usr/bin/ /usr/local/bin depending on what they are, and their libraries will go into a lib directory of a similar location.

For rpms, type
rpm -ql package_name | less
and you will get a list of the files and their locations.
To stop the screen scrolling, use | less after the command.
To exit less, type q

For tar.gz or similar, the make file has a script which places the files in their appropriate locations. Some require the tarball be in a specific directory AND you invoke make etc from there as well.

One beauty of Linux is that most progs run from anywhere. So long as lib files etc can be found in the PATH locations, all is sweet...

Regards,
Peter

Ok I get it, it's quite hard to understand first for someone who's never used Linux before, especially when you're used to Windows structure.

So what shall I do with the files I used for the installation, shall I just drop them in /usr/src and Linux will find them automatically when I want to uninstall a package?

How do I uninstall something that I originally installed from a tar.gz/bz2 file?

well no you should compile stuff in /usr/src/ in the first place. there is no big system involved in it.. it's just a standard place to put them, and you'd just do a make uninstall in the source directoy to reomove them

what do you mean by I should compile stuff, do you mean I should compress the files all together and then drop them in the /usr/src? But that would mean the I'd have to unpack them again when I want to uninstall them ?

When you 'compile' you do the 'make' and 'make install' thing. So he is saying you should download your .src.tar.gz files to your /usr/src directory. Untar them there, then 'compile' them in there as well. It won't make a difference now if you move them, go ahead and pick them up and put them in the /usr/src directory. But in the future, for organization and sort of a standard, do it all in 1 step. d/l straight to /usr/src if it's a .src.tar.gz file.