I'll often boot into root to install an app, because if I try to install it as a user with no success, I find myself thinking "maybe it's because I lack privelages". I suppose this is only the case on a new system when you're trying to configure lots of hardware/behavior. Once everything's running properly I imagine I'll almost never use root.

Article IS VERY informative, but does anyone have a list of packages needed for development? I must be missing some from my install and havent found a spot that actually lists everything needed to install packages whether tar or run etc.

that depends on what is used in it. The bin utils, found in the /bin folder are certainly used a lot.

but what else? once I finish the install everything i d/l for drivers gives me errors for example the run file for mygforce2mx card say something about no(or missing) kernel headers

The nforce chip which controls my net,sound etc gives me some error with nvnet.o

I have tried this at least 20 times including full re-installs of debian

you need the kernel-source files to build kernel modules

it is normally in /usr/src/linux-2.4?????? with a link to it named /usr/src/linux or /usr/src/linux-2.4

To install an app as root you only need to open a terminal, type "su" (w/out quotes) and enter your password. No need to boot into that account. When you are done, type "exit" and you will become user again.

i wish id read the article a bit earlier, but then, i usually able to find answers from this board anyway.

is the step he talking about make install?

Hi

Thank you for your help, so Where those commands placed the compiled files?
So how to uninstall (without doubts) a compiled program from source ?
It"s the same question with rpm''s.
It's a Big mysterioius stuff for me.

Thank you once again for your help.

I am having a lot of problems with installing from sources
some work some dont .
I can get past the untar and ./compile stages
The make gives +++ hasseles
getting error messages ++
Tried to install the MTL library
get the error message :

make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/my_name/mtl/
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/my_name/mtl/
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
[root@localhost mtl]#
same happens when i try to install 'freetype'

Any suggestions / help
Thanks

I have just installed UBUNTU LINUX over windowsXP, its realy nice and all... BUT!!! i cant play my mp3 files. HEPL!!

My problems come at the ./configure stage. It would help to give some guidance about what happens when the config script fails. I find them forever asking for something I don't have, or worse, something that is installed, but the confiure script cannot find it. Half the time it is because there is an associated -devel rpm or file that is needed, but other times it insists that something that my system tells me is there is not there. What are some reasonable steps to solve that sort of problem.

I have not tried yum because my computer is not normally connected to the net, and, in fact, I got on this site to find out how to make it work on a house lan. So I have to fall back on days of chasing stuff, and usually give up.

slight change in direction:

Currently I am trying to install kdevelop, but it is hung up on parts of the qt system, and each time I try to fix something, I get a bigger list of missing requirements. Does anyone have a better choice of a working development IDE that I might be able to install without going crazy?

Thank you,

Rex

Though I posted it elsewhere I'll repeat some advice for SuSE/Novell users here as this is the more appropriate thread:

Do NOT use "make install".

Use instead. This will run SuSEconfig and some or other local linker to keep your system coherent (it is RPM-based after all). You'll also be able to use Yast for further maintenance of your installed software and see your compiled program(s) there.

See also
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/in...&hl=suseconfig
http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/in...showtopic=4343

Arrrrhhh .... how to put this politely.
Users of RPM-based systems might need to be little careful using this advice - as suggested by the previous poster.
Last time I looked at RH, it didn't install the kernel headers (by default), and it installed the (optional) sources to a not expected (i.e. "non-standard") location. This was my first Linux distro, and I needed to compile linmodem support.
What an intro... lots of "fun" that was.

Eventually took my medicine, and said good-bye to RPM-based systems forever.
Now a Gentoo user, and well used to source installs, this article seems fine for users that have a system that contains the expected system tool-chain.
Pretty hard to make an "all things to all people" article.

I read the article about how to install a new package. Iam sorry but Iam very new to Linux. I installed suse9.3 from a DVD. Everything runs pretty nice on the workstation. I am trying to install Apache2 webserver and I cannot do it. I downloaded instruction from several sources and cant do it. YAST cannot find Apache. I download the tar and unzip it as per the article if I do ./configure it works. But after I type Make it comes up with a message "No makefile found". It i do LS i can see a makefile there.

Is there any place i can get some specific instructions to install APACHE2 on a new SUSE9.3 install?

Thanks