where is GAIM installed
 

really newbie question.
i just installed gaim rpm as root but i don't know where it is installed.....
another question.
when i install a program as root, does that mean mornal users can't run it?
thanks

'which gaim' should show where gaim is installed

Here are some commands:

whereis <name of what you are looking for>
locate <name of what you are looking for>
which <name of what you are looking for>

When you install a program, you have to be root. Depending of the program, all users will be able to execute them, as gaim for example. Remember though, each user, although using the same program will have different configuration files placed usually at their /home directory.

Let's say you have a user called John. When John uses gaim for the first time, a directory (usually a hidden one, starting with .<directory name>) will be created at /home/john/.gaim. In that directory is stored all preferences, contactlist and etc. It works for most of the programs too :). Hope I did not make this too complicated :(.

Good luck!

An additional note:

If gaim was installed from rpm, rpm -ql gaim will list all the files in the package. If you are running slackware, the list is in a file in /var/log/packages. If from source, there is no easy solution. I don't know what Debian does for a database.

In other words, important information for a post of this nature requires a little more information such as the distribution and/or the method of installation. Given that, the above comments are generally generic to Linux and also unix systems.

thanks guys, it cleared my mind.
however, the make install failed
taoweijia@linux gaim-0.68]$ make install
Making install in sounds
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/appsInstall/gaim-0.68/sounds'
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/appsInstall/gaim-0.68/sounds'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for `install-exec-am'.
/bin/sh ../mkinstalldirs /usr/local/share/sounds/gaim
mkdir -p -- /usr/local/share/sounds/gaim
mkdir: cannot create directory `/usr/local/share/sounds': Permission denied
make[2]: *** [install-soundsDATA] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/appsInstall/gaim-0.68/sounds'
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/appsInstall/gaim-0.68/sounds'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

when i issue which gaim, nothing turns up, so i think it is not installed atall.
now it seems like my sound card didn't configrerd correctly, but i dont understand why the program didn't install because of sound problem.

In your case, you must be root to perform "make install".

-twantrd

yes i was root when i did make install

I don't know any other reason why "mkdir: cannot create directory `/usr/local/share/sounds': Permission denied" shows up otherwise? :( Type "whoami" to be sure. Use "su", followed by your root-password to become root temporary. (never login as root, or play root all day long)

I see you're using an appsInstall user for your installing. That's not such a bad idea at all ;)

If you compile from source, you might want to take a tool at a tool called "checkinstall". It's able to monitor your "make install", and create a package for you. (you need to type "checkinstall" instead of "make install".)

Nope, you were not root when you used make install, here we can see it clearly:

taoweijia@linux gaim-0.68]$ make install

The dollar symbol represents an ordinary user logged. If you were logged as root, the symbol would be a hash (#) at the end of the above statement. If you're unsure about installing programs from source, read this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=45094

It might clarify a little these things. Yet, I'd also recommend you installing gaim from your Redhat CD's ;)

Good luck!

Yes, Megaman is absolutely correct. That is how you distinguish users from root. Therefore do yapp's suggestion, type "su" and then root's password. At this point, everything should be ok. If you still have trouble installing from source, then the easier way would be to install from the rpm package.

-twantrd