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Old 01-31-2005, 02:00 PM   #1
matrulesok
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A few newbie questions


I'm sure these have been asked before but im trying to get on with some work and a few searches havent given anything...

1) I need a fortran compiler in suse 9.1 personal. I have been lead to believe gcc is the way to go and have downloaded the core and fortran (g77) components(.tar.bz2), how do I install from here? Also, how do you install anything? This is one area that windows seems to have an advantage in simplicity, unless its just me being thick (probably)!
I notice suse has an info file for fort77 but entering the command I get 'command not found'!

2) I see that virtually everything relies on a command. Do you guys just remember all the commands through use or is there an easy way to look them all up when needed?

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by matrulesok; 01-31-2005 at 02:12 PM.
 
Old 01-31-2005, 02:46 PM   #2
jonaskoelker
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the short introduction to installation:

$ tar jxvf gcc_core.tar.bz2
$ tar jxvf fortran_stuff.tar.bz2
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

chances are that you'll need a C compiler to compile the GNU C compiler. In other words, you should probably install a binary image of the compiler (first, if you insist on compiling yourself). I'm quite convinced that SUSE has an excellent packaging system (or at least a packaging system), but I don't have any experince with it. Asking in the SUSE forum should give you an answer straight away.
Regarding the simplicity of installing on gnu/linux vs. windows: au contraire -- Linux is far simpler, at least according to my experience (which is mainly with synaptic, the GUI frontend to the debian package management system). YMMV.

2. Speaking for myself: learning which commands to use (and their names) is just by using them. Learning how to use them is through --help, man/info and google. One trick is to type tab twice at a bash prompt. It should reply something like 'show all 1983 possibilities (y/n)?', and (assuming you press y) give you a list of all commands you can run. Alternatively, you can type a single letter (or more), then tab twice. (try 'xa[tab][tab]', should give you a list of 'xargs', 'xauth' and (maybe) 'xasteroids').

you're welcome in advance,

Jonas
 
Old 01-31-2005, 02:52 PM   #3
Tinkster
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In addition to 2)
There's
man -k <search-term> which is quite likely to spit
out something sensible ... if "man -k" isn't to your
liking use apropos, does the same ;}


Cheers,
Tink
 
Old 01-31-2005, 03:12 PM   #4
bitpicker
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First you need to unpack the archives you downloaded (*.tar.bz2). The simplest way to do that is to use mc (Midnight Commander), if that's installed, as it can access the file as if it were a subdirectory; you can simply copy the content to another location. If mc is not installed, the command to unpack such an archive is bunzip2. Which brings us to your next question prematurely: I for one don't know all the commands by heart, only the few I need often. But you can always look up a command using 'man commandname', so in the above example you can practice by using 'man bunzip2' to find out which parameters you might want to use. And the aforementioned mc might help you to get things done when it comes to file management without you actually knowing the commands involved.

One of the differences between Windows and Linux is that a programmer can never be completely sure which libraries or other necessary software you've got on your system in which version and where they are located. Linux isn't one homogenous whole published by a single company. In many cases there exist a number of different solutions for the same thing - different X-servers, different libraries to give you elements for a graphical display, etc. You get to choose which tools you want to use, but on the downside that makes your system pretty individual. So in order to be able to use programs which haven't been specifically compiled for your distribution, you'll have to compile them yourself.

In order to do that, once you have unpacked the archive, find files such as INSTALL or README which came with the archive and read them. Usually you'll find instructions on how to install the software, and frequently you'll find that you've got to install this and that first. As I said, some tools you might already have, others you won't (especially when you're using the Personal edition of SuSE 9.1 which isn't actually geared towards compiling anything yourself, AFAIK), and I have frequently had to install, say, half a dozen other things first before I got the intended program to compile. You should, at least for now, use Yast to find out whether you have precompiled packages for the things you need to install on your CD/DVD. They usually install everything they need to run, too. Only in case you cannot find anything on the CD / DVD you'll have to compile from sources.

Robin
 
Old 01-31-2005, 03:39 PM   #5
matrulesok
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ok - have extracted and the read install notes. but i have to configure and in doing this i get errors about cc and a working compiler. I understand that its harder to setup files for many different versions of linux but this is ridiculous, I dont have nearly enough knowledge to be able to sort through this, all i want is a program! There has to be an easier way to install programs withput reading pages of setup files! If linux is going to challenge windows this would be a serious area for improvement.
In the meantime, this is what i get, any help from here would be appericiated!

mat@linux:~/fortran> /home/mat/gcc-3.4.3/configure
loading cache ./config.cache
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
/home/mat/gcc-3.4.3/configure: line 2332: cc: command not found
*** The command 'cc -o conftest -g conftest.c' failed.
*** You must set the environment variable CC to a working compiler.
 
Old 01-31-2005, 05:15 PM   #6
jonaskoelker
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there are two solutions to this:

$ export CC=gcc
--- or ---
cd into the directory where you have your C compiler ('which gcc' should give you a pointer), and make a symlink to gcc named cc
$ ln -s gcc cc
see also ln --help and man ln
--
both assume that you already have a C compiler installed. If you don't, the output of 'which gcc' should be empty, and you'll have to get one.

hope this helps,

Jonas
 
Old 02-01-2005, 01:20 AM   #7
chrism01
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Just FYI, there are several install tools eg Yast, apt-get, yum which will do all the work for you, including resolving dependencies automatically.
I'm sure at least one of them comes with Suse.
They usually have both GUI front-ends and cmd line ways to be used.
Unless/until you are familiar with Linux, I'd recommend using one of these, rather than doing it manually.
 
Old 02-01-2005, 04:49 AM   #8
bitpicker
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The problem is that we're talking about a Personal Edition of SuSE 9.1 which to my knowledge doesn't come with compilers. That's the reason why configure can't find a compiler, there isn't any installed compiler and there's probably none on the CD/ DVD either. The best solution would be to search one on SuSE's FTP site. The RPM packages to be found there will be the best solution for this problem. There might even be an RPM for the programs you wanted to install originally.

Robin
 
Old 02-01-2005, 03:10 PM   #9
matrulesok
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ok - thanks for the help. I decided best way to go was download 9.2 eval version (which i believe has gcc) and update. I tried yast but i couldnt see how to find packages, nevermind, hopefully next time i need to install i'll be a bit more competent!
 
Old 02-02-2005, 12:14 AM   #10
shengchieh
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> I see that virtually everything relies on a command. Do you guys
> just remember all the commands through use or is there an easy
> way to look them all up when needed?

See

http://www.websamba.com/Linux_Docs_Links
-> Console Commands

Sheng-Chieh
 
  


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