LinuxQuestions.org - Installing Software?????

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Installing Software?????

Hello People. New to this forum today. So thought i would kill 2 birds with 1 stone and say hi. and pick all your brains.

Been using windows all my life (20 whole years) and was shown linux by a new person starting at work.

He convinced me to give it ago....so off came xp and on went Mandrake 10.1(I Think, the latest one)

First impression is very good and i like the fact its all free! :-)

The only thing that throws me a little is the fact that it seems like you need to be quite techy to use it?

I downloaded some free software and didnt have a clue how to install it??

Call me stupid if i am but can any help????

Cheers

Add

Most software comes with instructions on how to install it.
In general, if you have downloaded a source tarball, (.tar.gz or .tar.bz2) then you should first unpack it into a directory. Open a terminal, go to that directory with

Code:

cd /path/to/dir

and then run:

Code:

./configure

make

su -c 'make install'

(you will be prompted for your root password in the last step).

If you're software is an RPM file, you can install it with just

Code:

rpm --install file.rpm

More complete instructions can be found at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Building-HOWTO.html