When I say I am green I am very green. But where in the world do you type all this stuff at? Everyone says type this and type that. But no one has said where it gets typed at. YIKES! Someone even said in order to run as root, then type su. I don't know where to type that either. All of this gets typed in the same place? I went to one place it didn't work.

If you downloaded a *.tar.gz or *.tar.bz2 package. Navigate to the
directory where you downloaded it and unpack it:

tar -xzvf <packagename>.tar.gz

or if it's a .bz2 package, then

tar -xjvf <packagename>.tar.bz2

Navigate to the unpacked directory then issue this order of commands:

./configure
make
su
(give your password)
make install

then to find out where it went at the terminal prompt type:

whereis <packagename>

it'll probably be in /usr/bin/

That's the command you'll use to execute it.

You have to be root to do the final installation

You type that in a terminal, mate.

If you're in KDE, there's a thing that
looks like a monitor with a shell ... click
that.

If you're in Gnome I have no idea
what it looks like, but pretty likely like
a monitor... click that.

If you're running some other Window
Manager, find something that says
term in its name, like xterm, aterm,
eterm, ... :)

Alternaltively, press <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<F1>,
log-in and tackle things from there...
To go back to your graphical screen
try <Alt>+<F7>

Cheers,
Tink

Or ctrl-alt-f2, if X is started from the first tty. And if you can find 'run' on the menu of a gnome or a kde, you can type 'xterm' in there and then type all the rest into xterm. (I like rxvt or aterm, but you may not have those - you're bound to have xterm.)

What any of that does is get you to your true shell, which is likely bash. That's the command.com/cmd.exe equivalent (only infinitely superior) and the most important application you have, along with the kernel itself.

/me high-fives Digi:"Booo-yah!" :D

Cheers,
Tink