Why do I keep getting this frustration?

Still trying to install Quickcam Messenger driver from a Tarball.

The first part was easy , the: TAR -xvzf (pkg.tar.gz)

Keep getting this message: (at the configure command)

james@james-desktop:~/temp/qc-messenger$ ./configure
bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
james@james-desktop:~/temp/qc-messenger$



Thanks for any help out here.

Configure isn't actually a command per se, though it's often mistaken as such. The ./configure is an autotools convention for configuring Makefiles and other related files that tell the compiler how to build a project. Breaking it down into pieces, the ./ tells the shell to look in the current working directory (in your case ~/temp/qc-messenger/) and therefore ./configure is really just telling the shell to look for a file located at ~/temp/qc-messenger/configure and if the file is executable, the shell will run it.

Usually the configure file contains a bunch of bash scripts that examine your system, looking for specific libraries, utilities, applications, etc. and locations of said libraries, utilities, applications, etc. then dumping the results into a Makefile. I say usually because there are always exceptions, and this particular piece of software may just be one of those exceptions.

Sometimes projects don't use a configure script...they may have a premade Makefile or use other means to configure the software for compilation (scons for example).

So I guess the first step would be just to list all the files in the directory and see if there's a file named configure, and if so see if it's executable by your user. Also, most projects include a README or INSTALL text file that explains the build process and will tell you what to do to get the software installed.

Hope that helps!

I figured out that I ned to change the ownership of the directory, or at least I think I do. I say this because I tried moving the folder to my james folder, however it will not let me do it. It keeps telling me that I do not have permission to do so.
I am in terminal and trying to change the user or ownership of the folder> I have this so far.

james@james-desktop:~$ cd temp
james@james-desktop:~/temp$ ls -l
total 4356
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 123889 2007-02-10 12:39 anime_007.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 275685 2007-02-10 12:06 anime_235.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 153136 2007-02-10 12:05 anime_270.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 56479 2007-02-16 17:35 kittens.jpg
-rwxrwxrwx 1 james admin 1394754 2007-02-20 19:50 lmule-1.2.1-1.src.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 1393629 2007-02-20 19:53 lmule-1.2.1.tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x 3 500 users 4096 2006-11-04 22:40 qc-messenger
drwxr-xr-x 4 500 users 4096 2004-11-12 09:57 qc-usb
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 167203 2007-02-20 18:29 qc-usb-messenger-1.5.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 154869 2007-02-20 18:22 qc-usb.tar.gz
-rw------- 1 james admin 311 2007-02-15 22:52 tarball
-rw------- 1 james admin 0 2007-02-15 22:52 tarball~
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 353805 2007-02-16 17:30 tiger.jpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 james admin 304382 2007-02-20 12:40 viking-0.1.2.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 james root 205 2007-02-13 20:01 xtpconfig.desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 james root 237 2007-02-13 20:01 xtpsetup.desktop
james@james-desktop:~/temp$


It tell sme that it is a 500 user, but I wish it to be root owned or user owned for james.

How can I change the ownership of the directory qc-messenger, to root or james?

for more info about ownership/permission commands read the man pages of:
chown chmod chgrp

Anyways, if there is no configure script in that directory there's still little use in changing the ownership. Read the README and INSTALL files in the source directory. They usually contain info about installing the software.

Thank you Headacher,
That worked very good, but had to use sudo to actually get it to work.

james@james-desktop:~$ sudo chown james /home/james/temp/qc-messenger
Password:


Tried other directory as well, and no problem, no errors etc.

I have read and looked in the directories for installation notes, readme's etc. It does suggest running a quickcan.sh file, but many errors occur there as well during the automated installation process. Something about a gcc file missing.