today is the first day ive ever used linux, im using ubuntu. installing things is a bit confusing for me, i need help. thanks

tar -xvfj yourfile.tar.bz2

FYI, bz2 mean the bzip2 compression method was used . See
man bzip2

If gzip had been used, the filename would look like
file.tar.gz or file.tgz
and the extract cmd
tar -zxvf file.tar.gz
or
tar -zxvf file.tgz

man tar
man gzip


you do need to be in the dir where the file exists and own it to extract it. It should create a dir under there with the extracted contents.

You'll find these useful:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...tml/index.html
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

to break it down:

file.tar.bz2...

file is the file name - doesn't tell us much
tar - this is a tar archive ("man tar" in a terminal window for more info)
bz2 - this file uses bzip2 compression (kinda like a zip file in windows or a stuffit file on a mac)

fyi: the shorthand version of this same file would be file.tbz2. That said, the extension doesn't matter with most linux apps, so it could just as easily be file.bkRulz & all the following would still apply.

to unarchive/uncompress this file, open a terminal window & do the following (in a terminal):

bunzip2 file.tar.bz2

this will uncompress the bzip2 & leave you with a tar archive called "file.tar"

to unarchive the tar, in the terminal:

tar xvf file.tar

-- or --

you can do it all at once by telling tar this is a bzip2 archive, like so:

tar xvjpf file.tar.bz2

for more info, read "man tar".

if you're unsure of any file, in a terminal, type

file whatever_file.ext

and you can see what type of file you're dealing with.

edit: I knew someone would be me to the answer, but after all this typing, I'm leaving it here.

Hello, and welcome!
First of all. You must know, that there are several methods to install software under linux.
Method #1: use the package manager. There are several package managers, but let's stick with Synaptic.
Method #2: using a tarball (tar.bz2 or tar.gz). Only use this method, if you couldn't find the software you need with the package manager, or you just need a newer version or you want to experiment. This method takes more time and it is unnecessary to install anything this way, if there is already a binary package available (.deb).
To answer the question in the title:
#1.: unpack the tarball
#2.: search for the text file "INSTALL" or "README" in the unpacked folder
#3.: read instructions
#4.: do what instructions say

To be more specific, the following commands are needed to install a tarball (install package from source).
./configure
make
make install
This works almost every time, but you may encounter some packages, where this method doesn't work. In this case follow steps #1 to #4 listed above.
You must also know, that it is strongly advisable to type
./configure --help
before ./configure because this way you will be able to see all the possible fine-tune options for that particular package.
Good luck!

P.S.: next time please use the search function of the forums before asking a question, since this question already was discussed several times before. Thanks.