I think it would be alot easier if you used your distro package manager instead of compiling stuff

I agree with the previous pts:

1. use your pkg mgr if possible, it'll save you a lot of grief
2. bzip2/bunzip2 is an alternative compression/decompression algorithm to gzip/gunzip. Neither are part of the tar cmd/util.
However you can compress/decompress files (inc tar files) with the appropriate flags (z for gzip, j for bzip2).
Note that its not unknown for files to be mislabelled (wrongly named), so when in doubt, try the 'file' cmd to see what they really consist of.

HTH

It looks like you need to install some packages before you can compile a tarball. binutils & gawk for starters. Maybe glibc-dev as well.

If the package is available from your distro, that would be a lot easier than compiling from source.
What is the name of the package you downloaded? What you downloaded sounds like an archive file of a source package. Posting the name could have told us that the file ended with .tar.bz2. Then we would know right away that it is a tar archive with bzip2 compression and guess that it probably is a source package.

One other thing that can cause the error you saw when running "./configure" is if you downloaded and extracted the tarball in a directory where you don't have execution permissions. It is best to download the package to your home directory where you have full permissions. I created a ~/downloads directory where I do this. Also, run the "./configure" and "make" steps as a regular user. You need to use sudo to run "make install" as root.

One last thing. Inside the directory you extract are most likely two files, README and INSTALL. Be sure to read them. Some source packages are prepared differently.

problem compiling
 

While installing wireshark I got following output
I ran
[root@localhost wireshark-1.0.6]#./configure


checking if profile builds must be generated... no
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking for GTK+ - version >= 2.0.0... no
*** Could not run GTK+ test program, checking why...
*** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the
*** exact error that occured. This usually means GTK+ is incorrectly installed.
configure: error: GTK+ isn't available, so Wireshark can't be compiled


I think I do not have GTK+
Please guide me.

Install GTK+ using your distribution's package manager. There might also be a package available for Wireshark, so check before trying to install from source (as has been advised earlier on in this thread).

I know it's been a while since this post, but HELP
 

I'm having the same problem... my file is called "mono-2.10.2.tar.bz2"
I don't know if this will help but perhaps you can look at the instructions I'm following and tell me why my computer thinks this isn't a bzip2 file, or if I'm misunderstanding something... you can tell me what
Is there a mistake in these instructions? --

apt-get update
apt-get install gcc libtool bison pkg-config libglib2.0-dev gettext make bzip2 g++

wget (URL HERE)/mono-2.10.2.tar.bz2
tar xvjf mono-2.10.2.tar.bz2 --

Thanks in advance.

I wasn't allowed to post URLs until I made at least one post but here's where I got the file -- http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/mono/

Hi,

please do not resurrect old threads. Start a new one instead and if you think that it helps then link to this thread.

I downloaded the above package and had no problem extracting it with the above command. Maybe your download was corrupted?
What does
say about the file-type?

SuSE has wireshark in its repository. You could simply run "sudo zypper install wireshark" to install it.

I you want to install the source, try "sudo zypper si wireshark". I have the gcc and C library packages needed to compile packages, but there were still 23 devel packages that needed to be installed on my system. Doing a source install using zypper or yast will install the dependencies.

I cannot convey my appreciation of your timely response as I am INCREDIBLY new to Linux, however I was able to find the file elsewhere and (through a ridiculous process of trial and error that was quite telling of my "newb-ness") edited the before-mentioned instructions to match the exact file directory and name (thank the gods I am at least competent enough with computers in general to do so)...
It's "make-ing" now (whatever that means [I assume it some form of compilation]) and I only have a few steps left before I'm hopefully hosting a C++ based server on my new Linux machine.
Seriously, thanks a million for your response... I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions for you, soon :)

tar bz2
 

look im not new but run to same thing all time . i can down load pkg. than find it dow loads . than untar it with tar xvjf pkg.this is where make mistakes. i goto the new file name and do ./configure com no such file, than go down hill, what did i wrong here

There's usually a README file in the resulting directory that tells you what to do.

I need help
 

I made it all the way through to the end before getting an error. Here is what im getting. Im using Backtrack 5r3 as well. Your probably asking who is a newb using Backtrack? Well I'm really good at Windows and been in the industry for 10 years on the Windows side. I like Linux more and more every time i use it. Any help you can give with this error would be great.

Thanks,

Anthony

anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c make install
Unknown id: install
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ -c make install
-c: command not found
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ sudo -c "make install"
usage: sudo -h | -K | -k | -L | -V
usage: sudo -v [-AknS] [-p prompt]
usage: sudo -l[l] [-AknS] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-U username] [-u
username|#uid] [-g groupname|#gid] [command]
usage: sudo [-AbEHknPS] [-C fd] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u
username|#uid] [-g groupname|#gid] [VAR=value] [-i|-s] [<command>]
usage: sudo -e [-AknS] [-C fd] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u
username|#uid] file ...
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
su: Authentication failure
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ su -c "make install"
Password:
make: *** No rule to make target `install'. Stop.
anthony@bt:~/Downloads/firefox$ ^[[2;3~

have tried over and over.. none of these codes work for me now, any of them on this thread. Is it different if you care booting from an external drive? My Hard Drive is not working....