I'm brand new to Debian Linux, and I only used my previous version of Linux, SUSE for a few hours before getting fed up for a similar reason as what's occurring now.
I want to install software that isn't provided in repositories (getting them to work is another story entirely), but I can't get Synaptic to load anything. I'm not even sure of what exactly to do with a tar.gz. I uncompress it, but then what? When I go to the "add downloaded packages" section of synaptic, nothing happens once I select the folder that the program I'm trying to install is in.

Please help me get this to work, I'm sure it's just some option I'm missing.

Look for a shell script named something like: 'configure'. Run this from the terminal.
Please note: I can't check this @ the moment, so I may have got it wrong.

You shouldn't generally be using tar.gz files in debian (that's the whole point of debian, it's easier). You should be simply "point & click" installing packages using synaptic or kpackage.

In Debian, you first need to set up repositories, if you did not set up repositories, the only packages that appear in Synaptic are those that are on the CD. Debian repositories have something like 11000 packages or more, so you should be able to install the package you want through Synaptic and not from source. Here is some reading material to get to know how to set up repositories:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap...basico.en.html

The sources list can contain all kinds of sources (download mirrors). I have Debian Etch 64bit, here is a copy of my sources.list:

The lines with a hash at the beginning (#) are commented out and not read by apt, if an entry was not commented out and invalid, apt would give an error during the "apt-get update" step that should be performed before every time you go to use synaptic, the first time you do "apt-get update" will take a little time to download repo data, but after that it only downloads changes and goes allot faster. In my apt sources.list are three sections that require one to download a gpg key to verify packages, they are directly under the title and are applied with the two commands that are commented out, for example:

For Multimedia you would copy and paste the gpg key commands into a terminal as root one at a time to get the key installed on your key ring:

Once you have the key, apt will not complain about invalid package signatures when installing something. Also, in my sources list are two sources from university of Yorkton Saskatchewan because they are close and fast for me, you would need to set up mirrors closer to you. In the howto above (web link) is a link to all Debian mirrors to choose one close to you.

In Synaptic, right click on a package you want to install and select "mark for installation", then keep looking for anything else you want to install and do the same for it. At the bottom left is a button called "Status", when you click on it you will find 4 or 5 sections in the left pain, one will be "installed upgradeable", by clicking on it you will get a list of all packages installed that have an update available, right click on any you want to update and select "mark for upgrade". Once you are happy with all selections, such as "install, remove, and update" certain packages, hit "Apply" at the top and apt will make all changes you marked.

Of course the easiest way is to use MEPIS Linux, which uses the Ubuntu pools based on Debian. One CD & everything's pre-configured. Just burn the CD from the free download .iso & reboot. Nothing to configure, the repositories are already setup in Synaptic.