i am trying to make a clean break from windows and am using mandrake 10. it's an amazing OS but i have no idea what happens when i install an RPM (kaffeine).

1. i save it to my desktop.
2. i double click on it and get the gmessage "You are about to install the following software package on your computer:/home/chris/Desktop/kaffeine-0.4-1.i386.rpm
You may prefer to just save it. What is your choice?"
3. i click on the install button and then it says it is installed. where did it go?

i've tried this with the same result with other rpms's. please give me a few consecutive steps to follow.

thank you

The program binary (like and exe file) will have gone into one of the searchable $PATHS.

type

echo $PATH

to see where the computer looks when you type a command.


a way to find where the binary is, is to type

rpm -ql thePackageName

do not put the .rpm at the end for example if I has a package called apache-1.4.3-i386.rpm I might type

rpm -ql apache-1.4.3

and it will display all the files associated with apache. Look through the listing and find the names of the files that are in /bin or /sbin or something like that because these are the programs which will load the program you have installed.

after that you can just the the name of the file into the command prompt and it will load up. Somethimes they will automatically add to the main menu but a lot of the time thry wont.

-jax

the rpm instructions worked perfectly. thanks. what steps do take when you download a tarball to the desktop? similar?

many many thanks!

A tarball usually contains a programs source. There are installation instructions in an Install file in the tarball. The general procedure is ./configure , make, make install.
Rpms are packaged compiled source.

download checkinstall

http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

this program allows you to install source code in rpm format so that you do not have to fill your dirve with the uninstall programs and waste space on you PC. This also allows you to manage you system easier as you can use all the rpm functionality on the program such as upgrading, removing etc.

-jax

oh and to answer your question about tarball files use this proceedure

use -zxf for .tar.gz and -jxf for .tar.bz2

tar -zxf mytarballfile.tar.gz

this will extract the contents.

then go into the newely created directory and type

./configure

make

checkinstall make install

this is assuming you have downloaded and installed checkinstall.

otherwise juse use

make install