That all makes perfect sense. So I can onw uncompress the file, and un-group it succesfully, but how do I do the bit that Bones996 said?

Do I just go into the directory, ("CD <filename>"), and then just type the commands without any parameters?

I'm assuming it is on the desktop then. I usually just go into a terminal, usually Start thingy then terminals then console. Type in su then your root password. CD to the right directory and type in those commands. You have to be inside the directory that the tar command created to do that.

To get to the Desktop type in

The D in Desktop is usually capitolized. Replace the username with what you login as. Mine is 'dale', so that would be /home/dale/Desktop. Then cd to the directory or just add it to the end of last command. If you need to see the directory to type it in correctly, type in

that is a small L. Same thing as dir in windoze.

If you want to know if you are root or not in console:

[dale@smoker dale]$ <<<< regular user dale
[dale@smoker dale]$ su <<<starting switch
Password: <<<< enter password
[root@smoker dale]# <<<< we're root now. Be careful.

Bedtime. Hope that helps. Someone else will have to kick in till I wake back up.

Later

From the command line as root, once you are in the directory ( cd <dir name>) you can type the commands that I listed earlier - each one serperately. You only actually have to be the root user to use the make install command. I do my ./configure & make commands as a normal user & then su to root to us make install, the less time I spend as root the better. Hope all of this helps

AdamPengelly, how's it coming over there?

Later

Not too bad thanks fella, enjoying myself a little too much really. Should pain be this enjoyable????

I still can't install this program, I can't figure out how to get some kinda command shell running in Gnome, or shut gnome down so I'm just running in the shell. I thing I would manage better with this install if I didn't have the GUI running.

I'm really diggin your help guys, it's great fun

I generally use KDE so, hold on to your shorts while I switch and see how Gnome works.

Be right back . . . . . . . . . .

Hope you still have your unders. There should be a thing that looks like a foot print in the lower left of your screen, click that then go up to Terminals then to Konsole and left click. That should get you a terminal. I usually use the one that has 'Super User Mode' on the end. Saves me from having to su later.

That will put you in the user directory. Mine puts me in dale for example. The complete path is /home/dale. All users, except root, are in this directory. Now that you know where you are let's find that file you want to install. If it is on the Desktop then type in cd Desktop and type in ls to list the files there. If you saved it and did not change where to save it to then type in cd Documents instead and type in ls to list the files there.

When you find the file, type in the commands given earlier. It will scroll some stuff up the screen as it progresses. Do not reboot unless the system does not respond for a extended period of time. It will slow you down a bit. I recommend not having anything open when you do this. Sometimes it may cause a conflict.

It's close to bedtime again. I got to vote in a bit too. Trying to get the sorry rascals out of there.

Check back later. Keep asking questions if you are lost. It takes time to learn Linux, it probably took some time to learn windoze too.

Later

Another way to open a shell, at least in gnome, is to go to a blank area on the desktop right click the mouse then click on new terminal. This is what I usually do rather than go through the whole menu to start a new terminal.

I'm new to linux my self, I also have redhat 9, and I strongly recommend you to install apt for redhat. Apt is the packet-manger in debian, but it also have a version for redhat. Apt will download and configure packages for you.

After you have installed the rpm package you can:

apt-get update # this will update the package list

apt-get install <name> # this will download and install a package, and other
packages needed for it to work.

apt-cache search <string> # this will search for a package

/etc/apt/sources.list <- apt mirrors
* man apt *
(sometimes it is better to compile the packages from source, since apt packages can be very old)

grep is a very useful command, you should learn that
* man grep *

In gnome you can press alt+ctrl F1-F6 and put down the GUI if you have to. alt+ctrl F7 gets it up again.
Remember to read files named (with big letters) README and INSTALL when you compile from source, it isn't always the same way.


**** Important: As I said, I'm just a newbie. Some of this things can be all wrong. If you find any errors, don't flame me, but do tell med

Remember to try, and struggle

That's quite handy to know, I might try that apt thing later on.

For now, I'm still very stuck on mplayer, but that' just cos I can't seem to findthe correct version to get....maybe....

However I have just (supposedly) successfully install apache web server. at least that's what the message said after I did the final "make install"

I cannot get it started though, I tried doing what it said (/usr/local/apache/httpd start and I just said the httpd command could not be found, and sure enough, when I did "ls" on that directory, there is no httpd. In fact, when I do "locate httpd" there isn't the file present on the system.

Any Ideas?

Delete mplayer, and compile and install from source. *REMEMBER THE README*

If you install xmms\mplayer etc from apt/rpm, you may get trouble in rehat. I don't know, it is something about licenses and such things.

if you want you can get the rpm files for mplayer from the official site at http://www.mplayerhq.hu there you can get the rpm for the binaries and also rpms for the different skins