Hi,

This is my first time trying to install ANY linux app.
I am running RH9 and trying to install SETI.

My downloaded file name is as follows:

setiathome-3.08.i686-pc-linux-gnu-tar

I understand that this is a tarred but uncompressed tarball.
My info. tells me that the untar command is:

tar -xvf filename.tar

I am logged in as user at a terminal and enter the following:

tar -xvf setiathome-3.08.i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar

I receive the error message: Cannot Open; No Such File.

What am I doing wrong?? Please be specific with your example. Exactly what should I type??

Your help is greatly appreciated.

I am a humble primer in Linux field,
Sometimes, I can't uncompress some the compressed files that I download from web, for example, *.tar, * .tar.gz in linux, however, some of these can be uncomprsed by winrar in windows.

Either cd to the directory where the seti tarball resides and then execute the tar command

or

give the tar command the full path to the file.

Once you've got it extracted, cd into the setiathome directory that is created, and enter

./setiathome

Follow the prompts. When it's finished downloading a work unit, ctrl-c out, and at then enter

./setiathome -nice 19 > /dev/null &

That's all there is to it.

Are you sure its .tar and not .tar.gz? Files are almost never distributed as just a .tar since zipping it to a .tar.gz saves on download time. If it is a .tar.gz, the command you gave isn't quite right. Instead try

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

The z flag will first unzip the file, then it will untar it. Of course, as Zenith suggested, be sure you are in the right directory.

Finally, to avoid typos, most console shells have a cool feature that uses theTAB key. If you start typing a file name, and then hit TAB, the console will fill in the rest of the file name. So type tar -zxvf seti and then hit the tab key. Save your fingers!

it is not ziped, login as root,
1. dubble click "home" on the desktop.
2. click the up arrow
3. go to the folder inwhich seti is at
4. top of screen, click tools, and open temnial window (something like that)
5. tar xvf seti (tab)
now it is untared
good luck geting it to run, I still working on that. (but seti cmd. line is running on my winblows box)