hello everyone,
I am quite new to linux,just started a week back,and i have a LAN connection,so it is not a big deal for me to download packages to install.

now i have a suse 9.3 on my system.
i found that i can install rpms with "yast",which comes inbuilt.

the problem is that i have downloaded ,"tar.gz" files,
e.g, i got a adobe reader 7 tar.gz source file,
now the trouble is ,
1) how do i install it?
2) how do i kno what is installed and what not?
3) how do i remove the installed applications?

please help me out,i am stil a learner in linux!

tar.gz files cannot be used with yast, you need rpms.
in a normal case, these commands should work
tar -xvzf pkg.tar.gz
cd pkg
./configure
make
make install

If you dont get errors that means you have installed it correctly.

unzip or untar the package using an archive tool (don't know what SuSe uses). Look for a readme.txt file or a install.txt and open the file up with a text editor and follow the instructions for installing the package. Sometimes the .txt file will give instructions how to remove the package, sometimes not.

w3bd3vil is correct, most packages use the
/.configure
make
make install
commands after typing in the package name if you're in the same directory as the package.

Learn to use the "tar.gz" method because most of your best apps are released in this form before they become available with an installer package such as rpm.

Shut down your machine and restart after the new install and see if the new app appears in a menu somewhere, if not do a search for the app name in your file manager and see if it is installed. Usually the readme.txt will tell how to launch the app.

Good luck !

thanks for the help.
can u suggest me any thing that converts sources into rpms
any ways i will try to follow ur instructions.
thanks alot.

I dont think there is any use to convert a source into a rpm. What you could do is download rpm's instead of tar.gz files. or use yast, it should be even easier. try searching some stuff on yast and read it.

There are files like the Adobe Reader that come in a compressed archive but contain binary (precompiled) files. If you untar the file there will be no need to do something like "./configure" or "make".
You have been told the usual procedure if the file contains sources. http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...ms_from_Source is a good additional read. If you want to compile from source AND create a RPM package then google for checkinstall or search here on LQ.org. It should be available as a package for your distro.

Plenty of information is out there, (Google it) to create RPM packages and Yast I assume, since I don't do Suse at the time, but creating RPM packages is for the experienced Linux user.

First and foremost, read the README.TXT file(s)!

To get started with Linux and enjoy your operating system just use the RPMs that are already created even if they are for an older version of the app you want.

You can fill your hard drive up fast if you waste a lot of hours launching bad installs from RPM that don't work or repeated launches of the same source code.

There's a program called CheckInstall that will do this. But, of course, it's best to download RPMs in the first place.