Should I switch over to Red Hat, Suse, or others? A lot of programs I want (BitTorrent, LimeWire, 3ddesktop) are all rpm. I went through synaptic, and I didn't see many things that were interesting to me. The only programs that I have on Ubuntu that I really enjoy are Gimp the Office package.

It says to install rpm packages on a Debian system, I should use Alien, which I have. How do I make Alien instal an .rpm package?

It also says I should see README.Debian., which I cannot seem to locate.

use whichever distro you like! its great to dowload many distros and try them out, whether installing on your computer or simply running off of the cd (LiveCD's). is ubuntu your first and only distro? which version are you using, 4/warty or 5/hoary? i first used warty but found it to be unstable for many basic things i did (not saying it is unstable, just saying it was for me and maybe because of how i had set it up). couple weeks ago i downloaded and am now running ubuntu 5 hoary preview release, which i believe will be finished and released in april. i find it to be much better than version 4, although still buggy (again, maybe just for me).

to find out how alien works type (in a terminal window) "man nameOfApplication" (without quotes), or in this case: when using "man" pages, use the space bar to go down a page, up/down arrows to go up/down 1 line, or page up/page down to go up/down a page.
to get a very brief description of what a command/utility is, type "whatis nameOfApplication" without quotes... to find where a command/utility is installed (located) type "whereis nameOfApplication" (without quotes, of course replacing the word with the command in particular).

from typing "man alien", it says that it is a program to 'convert and install an alien binary package.' i dont know what an 'alien binary package' is... i would say it is a package converted from a rpm/deb/slp,etc package using the 'alien' utility. read the 'options' that the man page tells you about. ie, the option "-d" will convert the given package name to a ".deb" package file. the option "-i" will install the package apparently. so you could do something like to create a ".deb" (debian package, which ubuntu uses, among others), and then continue trying to install that file...?

i am quite very new to linux and think ubuntu 5 is the only one i can stand for now (from the 10+ distro's iv tested). i dont install many programs, because i only use linux when i have spare time to fool around breaking stuff to learn so when i do install stuff, it is usually only updating programs through synaptic which is very easy. on the rare occation i do install programs i just follow the exact instructions on the install site. i suggest, for limewire as example, try running the command it says on the help page on their website to install it. run the command (from the directory you downloaded it to) or whatever. i downloaded that file last night and tried that command, but it gave error saying java virtual machine was required first... i didnt bother continuing cuz of the time... but from there what you do is go to the java.sun.com site or whichever it is, and install the files (JRE i believe, java runtime environment). it should have good instructions on there and be somewhat straight forward if you follow it. then after getting used to those installs you can move on to other methods, like alien or whatever... thats only my suggestion, whether right or wrong.

edit:
but to answer your question, to install the rpm package using alien, type
"sudo" i thought is mostly used on ubuntu (or maybe debian-based distros, i dont know, dont quote me.).. it stands for "switch user; do" or "super-user do", or something similar i believe. doesnt really matter i would say. sudo allows you to run a single command as the 'root' (almighty/admin/owner/god) user. the alien command i told you requires 'root access'.. so you type 'sudo ' in front of it to run that command with root access. the "-i" means 'install', as you will see explained in the man page,
i just ran the command on my computer, and it did a bunch of thinking then displayed the prompt again, which is a good sign meaning no errors. you can then type 'whereis limewire' to see where it installed it. or simply 'limewire' to run it. i tried to run it, but it, again, gave error about no java runtime environment installed therefore i would need to update/install JRE from the java site.. which i wont bother with right now because my mp3 player (xmms) which i installed from the terminal freezes whenever i play a song!

to find the readme file you are looking for, type the following including quotes, type the exact file name, i dont remember what you typed so what i told you might be wrong filename. the reason you need 'sudo'/root access for the command, is because only root can view/list/read some of the directories you are searching in, and therefore need to be root when you run the command. that should probably take a moment to complete, then list any directorys where this file is. the "/" means to look in the / directory.. everything on your computer resides in the / (root) directory, either directly or in sub-dir's.

I downloaded BitTorrent from synaptic, but I dont know how to run it. It is now marked green (meaning installed) now how do I run it? I did hit

sudo alien -i LimeWireLinux.rpm

now what?

i dont knwo about bittorrent.. check the site or something for how it works. ubuntu version 5 comes with bittorrent isntalled and i can access it from the applications > internet menu.

i told you what to do after the alien command. the reason i _took the time_ to write such a long reply to your post, was to maybe give you some insight or understanding to what your doing right now. take the time to read it and even reply to the questions i asked maybe.

Your right, I did overlook that. Thank you very much, it worked! I am now going to try and install Java on my own, and see how well I do.

after you ran that alien command to install the .rpm for limewire, did it not output anything? when you enter a command and get no feed back from the console, that _usually_ means that everything is good... ie, no errors to report. "no news is good news"

check in your applications > internet menu from the top left... is limewire now in there?

let me know if you need direction with the java setup, that _will_ be harder.

What do I do with an SH file? If it is too complicated, forget it.

[EDIT]Limewire is in my internet apps! This is a major breakthrough! Now all I need is Java. I downloaded it, and it is in My Downloads marked as an SH, I went to the Java site for help, but the commands they said to use don't make any sense. I dont think they were meant for Ubuntu.

{EDIT2}The instructions do work. My file was not named the same as the one they listed.

sh files are shell script files.. you execute them by typing 'sh filename' or './filename' might work, i dont know.
ok, what sh file?...for installing java? i dont think you would need one.

heres instructions on installing it:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/jre/i...elf-extracting

heres the page to download it:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
select 'Download J2SE JRE for Other Platforms', accept the license agreement, then click the link for 'self-extracting file' for 'linux platform'. the instructions on the link above pertain to that file.

edit: no, the instructions on the site will not have the same filename as yours. they specify this near the beginning of the instructions. otherwise they would have to rewrite the instructions for each release on each platform etc

sorry, didn´t realize this was so many pages already

Ok, I donloaded it and everything, and it verified it, but it isn't working? When I try to run Limewire, it still says I need Java, and when I go to "verify installation" on the Java page, the Cup I am supposed to see does not appear.

Like I said, the instuctions did work, it was just that the filename they listed was not the same as the one I had installed.

pevelius: no, there isnt many multimedia apps liek these in the Synaptic PACKAGE manager (not packet :P). you have to manually edit its config to add links for other apps, and if you can let me know how too i would like to cause it WOULD save trouble

Ok, I found an enable and configure section, so I am now continuing with my installation of Java.

if limewire still doesnt run, check everything over, did you install java in something like /usr/java? (creating the 'java' folder if necessary)

for the cup to appear (or for java to work in firefox/any browser) you gotta set it up so it does. instructions are on that same installation walkthrough.

ok.. since i hadnt had chance to install java or limewire, i have now lol
this is what i did, after downloading the java bin file (i saved it to /home/jordan/Desktop/)
open a console and:

sudo mkdir /usr/java
- this will create the 'java' folder in /usr/, with root access (sudo)

cd /usr/java
- change directory to where you will install java

sudo bash ~/Desktop/j2re-1_4_2_07-linux-i586.bin
- this will execute the java bin file i downloaded (your filename and/or path might be different). sudo gives root access.. 'bash' means to execute the file (somewhat :P)
edit: the "~" (tilde) symbol means 'home directory', the home directory of the user your logged in as.. in my case, /home/jordan. so the full path would be /home/jordan/Desktop/....

this should then give you a license agreement, scroll to the end just like how you would in man pages.. type yes/no to accept it.. if yes, it will install and when complete and working will say "Done." and give you the prompt back.
you should now be able to type 'limewire' in console, or browse to the icon with a gui and load up and setup limewire