how do i actually install stuff in linux??
 

Hi,

um well this will be a piece of piss question to answer, so hopefully someone will answer it heh

Um yeah how do u install things in linux? like this compiling thing i hear about..and rpm what the?.....
if u reply to this questoin could you please be fairly specific as to what is needed to be done as i have limited/no linux experience.

if i download a program from the web .....it is a folder filled with numerous files....how do u compile them is ther just one file to compile and it uses teh rest.....can u then delete the downloaded files etc etc....this is the sort of info i would appreciate ....

cheers!

well, there are a number of different ways to install something in linux. some of it depends on what distro you're using. Red Hat has an installation package they use, whose files end in .rpm - these can be installed using just rpm -i <packagename.rpm> (this tool is available with most distros, not just red hat)

on the other hand, you can also download source packages and compile them and install them yourself. these are generally labelled .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 they have been zipped (.gz) and archived (.tar) and must be uncompressed before anything else. this is done with

tar -xzvf <packagename.tar.gz> or tar -xjvf <packagename.tar.bz2>

then cd <packagename> and less INSTALL will let you read the installation instructions, which should include any specific instructions for this software package. once you're comfortable with this, the following three commands should install any source package:

./configure
make
make install

this is a brief overview of the topic. here's a link with more information: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue49/lamb.html

then just go out and try it! it's a lot easier than it sounds. :)

ps. don't forget to read the man pages!

(man tar) etc

if you are running redhat, knoppix, debian (or some debian derivative) you might like the convenience of apt. you can get some information here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...l+apt+synaptic


and get apt from http://www.freshrpms.net though i think the site is temporarily closed to protest software patents...

there is a nice point and click gui front end called synaptic that handles dependencies, upgrades, uninstall, etc...quite a nice little program if you use rpms.

when you have installed apt using the instructions in the earlier post do:
now by typing synaptic at the shell prompt you will start the gui.



cheers

NOTE: the apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade are not necessarily required to install synaptic (i don't think), but will probably fix most problems that you may encounter.