installpkg handles .tgz files just fine, howevr how do I install .tar.gz? In case of firefox, do i have to manually unzip it and put ti into mozilla folder?

Just use 'tar xzf file.tar.gz' to unzip the file, and usually there's an install or readme file in the directory that will tell you how to install.

or you can always go to http://www.linuxpackages.net and search for the application you are looking for. you can download firefox from there as a .tgz package. there are many other apps there such as k3b which i like to burn cds

You should unzip it first with gunzip, then untar it.. but you could do both in 1 step through

tar xvfz myPackage.tar.gz

Afterwards most probably to install it you'll have to use the three commands
./configure
make
make install

i prefer to use 'checkinstall' instead of 'make install'. It creates a .tgz package for you so that you just
installpkg myPackage.tgz
next time, as well as adds your package to pkgtool so that you can uninstall it anytime you want.
http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

HTH

I'm way new to linux, i have mandrake 10 installed, but i'm lost, I'm trying to install cdrtools, so I went into super user and accessed root, then accessed the folder that the tar.gz file was in. Did as you said, ran tar xvfz cdrtools-2.00.3, then wow, a bunch of files flew by the screen and I was left back at the cdrtools folder. What do I do now? I assume that it extracted the files right?

here is a part of it

"cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/overlap.c
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/p_block.c
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/paranoia.c
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/cdda_paranoia.h
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/gap.h
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/isort.h
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/overlap.h
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/p_block.h
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/README.interface
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/README.paranoia
cdrtools-2.00.3/libparanoia/overlapdef.txt"

looked just like that but with more wording, sorry i'm big time noob in the land of linux, i'm frusted and need some help.

I didnt understand this part, i type in ./configure and then what? or where?
"Afterwards most probably to install it you'll have to use the three commands
./configure
make
make install"

Reason that i'm installing cdrtools is because the web site for the program said that i need it in order to install x-roast.

Thanks in advance if anybody helps.

P.S. I just noticed that i'm posting this in the wrong sections, sorry, i was doing a google search and ran accross this, I figured that the answer to owner of this thread is like mine, I am not liking mandrake it is running as fast as i've seen slackware run, however I cannot seem to find a download for slackwear that supports amd64. Thanks again.

In this case, the files were extracted to a new folder called 'cdrtools-2.00.3'.
Go into that directory, and then do the:
./configure
make
make install

as suggested by xushi. Also, he suggested looking into checkinstall. I 2nd that idea.
Checkinstall will make a tgz you can use again in your slackware install if necessary,
and it will also allow you to uninstall (easily) it if you ever need to.

-tw
p.s.
checkinstall homepage
http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

If you do not use checkinstall, find the install.txt or readme in the cdrtools-2.00.3
directory. ./configure,make,make install is the standard (i guess you could say)
way of installing a program from source.

Thanks, cool I got it figured out now, but i guess it wasnt built for amd-64, because when i typed ./configure it told me that it doesnt use that command anymore and to use make instead, so I did, however got an error, and umm, it was long, it had x86-64 in it, I phone a friend and he said that the program will not work with 64, however lucky noob me, its already install in Mandrake! so I now know how to burn an ISO so I can go and find a better operation system, I'm not liking mandrake, for example it keeps shutting off stuff that i'm working on, like typing in an address in mozilla and then all of a suddeen boom, no more.

In the future if you have mandrake questions, I would suggest not asking it in a slackware forum. As I recall from my rpm days, it is usually best to install software from rpms when you are using an rpm based distro. Installing from source will leave the software missing from your rpm database. Slack users don't have to worry about that type of thing. Just a suggestion.