installing stuff - I have no idea how to

I'm trying to figure out how to add software to my new OS.

I thought I'd start with something easy so I download this game called 3D Pong from FSF. Don't know if it's good or bad point is I wanna install it.

now, it says in the readme that I should type "make", so I do that and get

make: gcc: Command not found

And I figured this is a c compiler??

I guess the first question is - how do I get going with the gcc c compiler?

which distro you using?

I'm using Fedora Core 5

I think my main problem is that I can't install GCC because it needs a c compiler to compile it. It says on their page

http://gcc.gnu.org/releases.html

"Important: because these are source releases, they will be of little use to you if you do not already have a C compiler on your machine. If you don't already have a compiler, you need pre-compiled binaries."

But then on the binaries page

http://gcc.gnu.org/install/binaries.html

None of the platforms seem to be Linux.

You should be able to find the packages for GCC on your Fedora CD/DVD or install them via yum.

open your terminal and run,

su

then

yum install gcc

Always install with yum if possible; compiling files from source is a pain. It takes a very long time and you have to worry about unresolved dependencies. So, try using yum's search function to see if there isn't a package for 3D pong available.

If there is a package available that is for your distro , if im not mistaken fedora is .rpm , always get that cause it makes installing a whole lot easier.

just do one thing, insert ur CD1 from whcih u installed ur OS.
run it as autorun, it will ask u if u want to install pakages, so proceed and choose GCC, and then proceed as per directed.

this is simplest way as u seems to be new to linux . also this is perfect way to installing GCC rather then going on GCC site and then downloading and then configuring.

all the best, reply me if it helps u.

Thanks a lot everyone for being so helpful. I feel like a proper newbie though.

Like linoxp's suggestion on running the CD as autorun is probably great, but I put the CD in the drive and nothing happens, and I open the CD and look at some files, but then what!?

typing "su" and then "yum install gcc" worked like magic though, this yum-package-repository system is impressive.

Well - I got gcc, now I want pong!

Trying to follow Maritime's advice on searching for a pong package I try , "su -c 'yum list *pong*", and the system seems to look around, or do something at least, but without anything that I percieve as a succesful result. The last line that is returned is "Added 255 new packages, deleted 1208 old in 45.33 seconds", what that has to do with a search I don't know.

Following the readme included with the pong files, I am instructed to type make. I try this again now with gcc installed and about 4 pages of errors are thrown on the screen. Most of these errors seem to be undeclared variables, like "Asrc/3dpong.c:1492: error: ‘blackgc’ undeclared (first use in this function)".


Questions are:

how do I run a CD as autorun?
what has su to do with yum??
how do I search repositories for 3Dpong?
why doesn't pong install when I type make?

Thanks!!

Originally Posted by mrHoff what has su to do with yum??

You need to be root to use yum and you use su to become root (though you can use su to become any other user).

Hello mrHoff,

It seems you have got a lot of questions in front of you.
To make the CD drive mount automatically, you would need to add the directive 'auto' in the permissions field of the drive in the 'etc/fstab' file. Then you just issue the command 'mount -a'. This would try to mount all the devices, also at the next reboot.
Yum is the default software installing tool in Fedora. You also have other forms such as 'up2date'. Yum installs softwares from the Fedora repositories which is defined in the /etc/yum.conf file. We can add our own repository URLs. Installing software needs root priveleges, therefore YUM too needs them and you have to run it as root.
You can use the 'list' or 'search' option in yum to check for the packages. But i don't think there would be a pack: for Pong.
The reason for the errors maybe probably the library conflicts, the needed compilers etc.. Check the readme or install file for the needed libs: if there is one and try again... It may depend a lot on your installation,so we can't arrive at a conclusion here.

Thanks,,

I am newer than a newbie, so please pardon my ignorance..
when installing, I have found that there is usually a file called "install" (or a similar name) in the programme..
this contains information on how to go about the install..
and does not "./configure" mostly come before the "make" and "make install" commands?
I have found .rpm files easiest to install, and favour them for my 'experiments' with linux..
thank you for reading this..

Hi mrHoff. First of all, will you post the url from where you got pong, and I'll give it a go.

GCC is not going to be enough to compile packages. You need the development packages that you would have been able to select, if on the install of FC5 you had chosen to customise the packages to be installed, as you need stuff like, autoconf, automake, and no doubt other packages.

This is not your fault, and I for the first time with FC5 forgot to customise the packages. If you are on dial-up like me, it might be quicker to reinstall FC5, that is if the install went with no problems. When you get to the page with the packages to be installed, there is an option at the bottom of the page to customise. Make sure that the Xwindow system, Gnome desktop, Kde desktop, development, and any other stuff you want is checked. A lot of it will probably be checked already, and probably the only things you need to add will be KDE desktop, and the development packages.

FC1,2,3, and 4 used up2date along with the add and remove packages utility, which enabled you to add packages from your install CDROM's. FC5 has changed things. Yum was on FC4, but still also had up2date, and the add and remove packages utility that worked with it. FC5 only has Yum, and a new utility that adds and removes packages called pirut (pronounced pirate). As of now it does not have the ability to add packages from your CDROM's, which is why I say if your on dialup it might be quicker to reinstall, and customise the packages on the way through the install.

With Gnome, if you go to the main menu/System/Software Updater, and click on it, it will open up pirut. Let it run. It takes a while as it's retrieving the info from the net. It should have opened up in Browse mode. Click on "Development" on the left, and check the "Development tools" box on the right. If your on Broadband click apply, and they'll be downloaded and installed (hopefully). If not on Broadband, click on the "List" box on the left of the window, leaving the development box checked, and you'll get a list showing with green ticks all the installed packages, and all the development stuff that needs to be installed with a little icon at the start of the line for all the packages that need to be installed. If on dialup, unless you feel like downloading them, don't forget to go back to browse mode, and uncheck the development box.

I somehow doubt whether there is an FC5 RPM available yet for this game, and the file you DL'd may be the best way to go.

Sorry for the long post. Nigel. aka farpoint

Yeah, when I install programs (i'm sorta a newbie with linux and learned most things just by messing around) I usually get the source file, even though it takes longer it still works, such as *.tar.gz or *.tar.bz2 or whatever (not a pre-configured package). Installing it goes as follows: 1)Open the file with "Achive manager"(or another program like it) when first downloading the program. 2)Extract the contents to the desktop or somewhere you can find it (make sure you click the box that says "open destination folder after extraction) 3)When the folder opens up select "reload" from the "view" menu 4)Find the folder called "3D pong" (or whatever the program is named) 5)Open up a terminal window, from the applications menu then system tools or something to that effect. 6)Certain programs will tell you that you do not have permission to run the program so you may need to "su root" then type the root password. 7)type "cd (space)" in the terminal window and then drag the folder called 3D Pong into the terminal window and reselect the terminal window and press enter. 8)You should now have changed directories to the correct folder. Now type "./configure" including the dot and slash and then press enter. 9)After it does it's thing type "make" and then hit enter. 10)Then after it does it's other thing then type "make install" and enter one last time. Then hopefully it's installed without any error messages, if you get an error message like "Cannot find GCC" or something like that then you may need to track down that file usually a google search for the error message will lead you to the correct place. Then to run the file read the "readme.txt" file in the folder you previously extracted to the desktop or where ever. Try that.....if that doesn't work then read the "install.txt" file or the "readme.txt" file for some different steps. But those usually work just fine for most of the crap I installed.

Originally Posted by thisisquincyorjim Yeah, when I install programs (i'm sorta a newbie with linux and learned most things just by messing around) I usually get the source file, even though it takes longer it still works, such as *.tar.gz or *.tar.bz2 or whatever (not a pre-configured package). Installing it goes as follows: 1)Open the file with "Achive manager"(or another program like it) when first downloading the program. 2)Extract the contents to the desktop or somewhere you can find it (make sure you click the box that says "open destination folder after extraction) 3)When the folder opens up select "reload" from the "view" menu 4)Find the folder called "3D pong" (or whatever the program is named) 5)Open up a terminal window, from the applications menu then system tools or something to that effect. 6)Certain programs will tell you that you do not have permission to run the program so you may need to "su root" then type the root password. 7)type "cd (space)" in the terminal window and then drag the folder called 3D Pong into the terminal window and reselect the terminal window and press enter. 8)You should now have changed directories to the correct folder. Now type "./configure" including the dot and slash and then press enter. 9)After it does it's thing type "make" and then hit enter. 10)Then after it does it's other thing then type "make install" and enter one last time. Then hopefully it's installed without any error messages, if you get an error message like "Cannot find GCC" or something like that then you may need to track down that file usually a google search for the error message will lead you to the correct place. Then to run the file read the "readme.txt" file in the folder you previously extracted to the desktop or where ever. Try that.....if that doesn't work then read the "install.txt" file or the "readme.txt" file for some different steps. But those usually work just fine for most of the crap I installed.

Usually, the files in tarballs are called INSTALL and README, Linux doesn't care about file extensions (though case-sensitivity is important).

Not all source packages have a configure script and you may want to become root when you run "make install" (so, for example, the binaries are installed to /usr/bin or whichever prefix you've chosen).

Also, you don't need to drag folders into terminal windows (heh, I didn't know you could do that), you can use tab completion in the terminal which is quite quick and easy (i.e. you type the first few characters of a file or directory name, hit tab and it'll fill in the rest as long as the name is unique. If not, double tab gives you a list of stuff starting with the characters you've entered).