I don't have muck pratice with Linux and I still get stuck on some basic stuff like installing software on my box. My previous distro was Mandriva 2005 LE, so I just used .rpm and pretty much did it all by itslef. Now that I am using slack I don't have a clue how to go about. Can someone give me hand?! For example, I just downloaded amule. By default, firefox downloads it to my desktop. It finished downloading but I don't see it in my desktop. I am using KDE, because it is easier for me to find things, but I wanted to do this using 'blackbox' and just the command line...

Anyway, looking in the 'Konqueror' I found the donwnloaded file in '/root'
the file is aMule-2.0.3.tar.gz
so... tar:/root/aMule-2.0.3.tar.gz/

So how do I go about on installing this package?

Thanks!

Read this and this. They are two guides to installing packages from source.

Also check out our Slackware forum for advice on slackpkg, slapt-get, and swaret -- automatic package installers you may find useful.

(My opinion is that it is always useful to know how to compile from source, no matter what help you have)

Thanks, I had a look in the guide but I am still having problems... The same thing used to happen when I compiled from source in Mandriva 2005 LE and someone told me that using Slackware I wouldn't have this problem. Anyway, after I done all the make, make install, I have the program 'installed' but then, when I try to execute the program I get this message of missing libraries (as always). I did the ful installation of slackware!
Ok, now I have no idea how to get this missing libraries to make this thing work! Here is the error message:

root@vanya:/usr/local/bin# dir
amule* ed2k* wx-config@ wxrc@ wxrc-2.6*
root@vanya:/usr/local/bin# amule
amule: error while loading shared libraries: libwx_gtk2_xrc-2.6.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory


*one more thing... I know thats a very silly question but is bugging me! When I type 'dir' in a directory which has a lot of files, it goes straight to the end of the list and I can see the beggining. What is the command to see what is inside a directory in a way that I can move down as I read? Like reading the man pages for example, when you press the space bar it moves down...


Thanks

Look into using "more" - as in "dir /dir |more" minus the quotes. I see that you are running as root. Try logging in as a user and then running amule.

That error usually indicates a missing file needed by the program you are trying to run. Try doing a google search for it. Slackware doesn't use dependancies like some of the other distros which is why it didn't show up during install. XavierP is correct of course, you shouldn't run as root.

usually it's just:

./configure
make
su
make install

I was rnning as root because I was having problems in the 'user' mode, I couldn't even use startx... (I solved this problem:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=392633 )

Now I logged in as 'user' and the program runs! It doesn't work, offcourse, that would be asking too much , but it runs!! Thanks for the tips!

Since Slackware has no dependency checking, it's up to you to provide the needed applications, files and libraries.
I strongly encourage you to read the help pages when downloading an app (for example: http://www.amule.org/wiki/index.php/...n_Installation) and read the README and INSTALL file after unpacking the source tarball. In most cases these are standard files, but online help and these two files should tell you, on which other programs/libraries/files your application is relying on. Slackware comes with many libraries that are not installed in other distros, but now and then you will be required to compile a second or maybe even a third package to get something working.