I am trying to run a binary file, but everytime i try to i get "cannot execute binary file".

using "file" i get the following:

./installer: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.0.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

Its a 32-bit executable, like my system. My only worry is that its been compiled for such an old linux kernel (2.0 i think that means?). Could that be the problem?

Either way how can I get this to run (im assuming you can because i find that linux is generally good when it comes to backwards compatibility).

System is a Pentium4-m system with 256Mb RAM, running gentoo with 2.6.11 kernel.

UPDATE:

Now I get "permission denied" when I try to run the file

the output of ls:

ls ./installer -l
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ognen users 55816 Jun 14 2005 ./installer

so the file has the execute permission set, but I still get "Permission denied". Anyone got any idea why?

Do you have execute permission on the file, or is the filesystem it's on marked as noexec?

as stated in the edit...

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Didn't read that properly. What about the filesystem being marked noexec though?

Think nothing of it, I wasn't annoyed

the file is on the root filesystem, which doesnt have the noexec option (can a root filesystem have a noexec option and function?). Any other ideas?

It's possible the fact that it's dynamically linked is the problem, if it's looking for a library that's unavailable. I would have thought that would have given a different error message though. Presumably you don't have access to the source code? Would it be possible to contact the application's author to see if an updated version is available? Other than that, I'm out of ideas I'm afraid.