I don't know what is in software centre, but I doubt it.

That post I pointed you to earlier says:
That looks pretty clear to me. I expect the name of XnView....rpm may have changed since that was posted. But that will be obvious when you download it, and should be obvious in step 3 that you use the name of the file you downloaded. To a real beginner, it might not be obvious you need to either cd to the directory containing that file, or use the full path with the file name.

That command sudo alien -i does the install. No compile is needed (unlike installing from a typical .tar.gz file), just installation from a .rpm instead of from a .deb

Since we now know you are using 32 bit Ubuntu, there is no complication from XnView being 32 bit. (In your output from uname it said i686 i686 i386. On a 64 bit Linux it would have said x86_64 x86_64 x86_64)

Installing from that C# source code would be totally different from the typical methods of installing from source code from a .tar.gz file. But different doesn't imply difficult. I expect it would be trivial for someone with even a minimal knowledge of mono. LQ has lots of helpful experts. If you mention C# and mono in the title of a thread (to get the attention of the right experts) and ask how to install that specific .tar.gz file (provide a url and/or provide a list of the files that were unpacked from the .tar.gz) I'm pretty sure someone would give you simple instructions.

Thanks johnsfine I admire your patience with me, anyway I had already installed alien but couldn't get it to install but your instructions were spot on and everything seemed to install ok, however now I've instaled it something still isn't right although XnView is listed in applications/Graphics it seems to be only partly installed when I open it and click open file it quickly flashes on the screen then disappears also if I right click an image file to select an application to open it XnView isnt listed as an option nor is it listed if I chose chose other application, I'm not sure whether it's just a bad install or I've done something wrong, I've copied the terminal window for you to have a look at hopefully t may tell you something

Thanks again for your patience


Emegra

I just quoted the instructions that were in the thread in another forum that I had posted a URL for earlier. I've never tried alien myself.

That is unfortunately true for most general purpose tools in Unix.

The tool just structures the activity it is for. It doesn't really do the work. Instead it delegates (at least some of) the actual work to various more specific tools. A less general tool would have a package that specifies which other packages it depends on, so the package manager would know what else you need to install to make this package work.

In this case, I would guess there are tools specific to each file format. Since there are so many file formats and the developers of XnView don't know which formats you will use, it doesn't make sense for the package to specify that all those file formats are required before XnView. But since the XnView package doesn't specify that, you need to somehow know what packages to install for the file formats you want.

I'm just guessing the issues are file formats and the generality of XnView. It could be some imperfection in alien. Either way, your intended use of XnView requires that you install some other packages in addition to XnView. The main trick is figuring out which packages, and then for video file format packages there is a significant chance they are in a repository that is disable by default in software centre. Not having used software centre, I can't tell you how to find and enable such repositories (I'm sure any experience Ubuntu user could).

File browser right click is generally less well supported in Linux than in windows. The installer for a Windows app can usually be expected to set up the file browser right click association. The installer for a Linux app usually doesn't.

I don't know what file browser you are using. I know Ubuntu 11.04 supports several file browsers and I don't even know which is the default. But anyway, I don't know much about setting up right click associations in any Linux file browser. That is another one for which you should ask a different expert.

I don't see any copy of a terminal window in your post. But I assume you mean the terminal Window from use of Alien. I doubt that would tell me anything.

Thanks again Johnsfine

I'll have to read over your last post a few times to fully understand I do understand that trying to explain something like this to someone with such a weak fundamental understanding as I do can't be easy and I appreciate your patience,

From what I've read so far (if I understand rightly) it seems to me in order make XnView work (or perhaps any other program using the rpm format) I would need to install some other package or packages which may or may not be in the synaptic repository and I have to guess what they are as the developers of XnView dont say.

To be honest XnView isn't really that important to me I know there are other applications in the software centre that would probably work just as well maybe even better than XnView but it seems crazy to me that something that is so fundamentally simple in windows can be so complicated and difficult in Linux

Sorry about the terminal commands I must have omitted to paste them in I appreciate it probably wont tell you anything but here t is anyway

graeme@Emegra:~$ cd /home/graeme/Downloads
graeme@Emegra:~/Downloads$ sudo alien -i XnView-static-fc4.i386.rpm
dpkg --no-force-overwrite -i xnview_1.70-2_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package xnview.
(Reading database ... 187170 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking xnview (from xnview_1.70-2_i386.deb) ...
Setting up xnview (1.70-2) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for python-gmenu ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/desktop.en_US.utf8.cache...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
graeme@Emegra:~/Downloads$


Many Thanks

Emegra

rpm's are difficult to install in windows as well <@.

Hi Schneidz
Pleae dont think I was knocking Linux I'm not I know I have a lot to learn and the problem is more my lack of knowledge than the softweare but to be honest I've never come across RPM's in windows and I never had any problems installing XnView or Media Companion in windows or any other software for that matter I get the impression there's something I'm not fundamentally understanding about Linux and I suppose thats what intrigues me


Emegra

Please start xnview from the commandline and post the error-messages you get here. Please use code-tags for posting that information here.

That was my guess based on the symptoms you described before.

But I downloaded XnView onto my 64-bit Mepis system on which the alien install method didn't work, but I manually pulled out the XnView executable to see what else it needs and it seems to be unusually self contained for a Linux app. I opened it and told it to open a .png file and the a .gif file and both worked fine.

Now that I've tried XnView myself, that sounds like a much stranger symptom than I initially guessed.

That is definitely one of the things worth trying when a program started from a GUI menu disappears. By starting from a terminal window, you provide an extra chance for the program to deliver a meaningful error message.

Hi TobiSGD thanks for your advice could you please tell me how I start a program from the command line and what code-tags are

Thanks

Emegra

Open a terminal window and type the name of the executable, which is XnView

(The installer put XnView in /usr/bin, which is part of your path, so you only need the executable name. If an executable were installed in some directory not in your path, you would need to type the full path and name.)

The GUI app will then start. Try using that. When/if it disappears, look back at the terminal window it was started from and see if it put any error messages there.

Immediately above the area for typing posts, second icon from the right, looks a bit like a #. You can select some text in your post and press that control and it will wrap the selected text in code tags. Or you could press the control to insert the start and end code tags, then insert the text in between them. Or you can type the code tags yourself with the text between them.

Text between the start and end code tags will be formatted different. That format should be used when quoting text from a terminal window or source code, etc.

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Hi Johnsfine I did as you suggested and heres the result
Thanks again
Emegra