software installation question
 

Hi all, I'm new to linux and having trouble installing software. Is there a distro that will do all of the steps necessary to install third party software so I dont have to use the command line? Or better yet, a package I can download from the package manager that will do these steps. It's greek to me and I've tried following the given instructions on untarring the tarball and all that stuff, but I can't ever get it to actally install anything. Any help is greatly appreciated. Cheers.


BTW I'm using fedora 12

The Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu is likely the "Easy Button" you are looking for. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

As that page likely explains, third-party stuff is often in the restricted, multiverse, or universe repositories (as opposed to main or backports.) Here's a bit more about repositories, if you care: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

Using a package manager at th command line requires no untaring or any other wierd stuff.
if you are using fedora:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+use+rpm+package+manager

Aha -- better what smeeze said, as I see you have a Fedora logo under your username. Use the Yellowdog Update Manager (yum). It's an Internet-enabled rpm wrapper. There are graphical versions (yumex, gyum, etc.) but you should probably just learn how to type the following into the command line:

That's not that hard, right?

I thought fedora used RPM?

If you are looking for something that will do **everything** so you don't have to think----I'm sorry, it's not going to happen. There are too many variables, including whatever libraries might be required by the 3rd-party SW.

Rather than trying to avoid the command line, I would advise you to learn as much about it as it required to do a specific task. This does not mean you have to become a "propeller-head".

Here are some priorities for installing Linux SW---regardless of distro:

1. Always use the package manager, if at all possible. This might include configuring it with a 3rd-party repository.
2. Do a Google search / LQ posting on a specific problem--eg "How do I install Framus Modulator on Pinnochio 18?"
3. Go to the website for a particular package and follow the instructions. If this means learning to compile, then DO IT. Ask for help when you get stuck.

I acknowledge that things can sometimes be intimidating, but most problems have solutions if you take it one step at a time.

Ummm---gee---isn't YUM a tool for installing RPMs?

Smeeze - the rpm utility is equivalent to the Redhat equivalent to the Debuntu dpkg utility. Both are the underlying strongarms for their respective yum and aptitude (or apt-*) front-ends. Unless you have good reason to do so, direct invocation of the rpm and dpkg commands should probably be avoided, favoring instead their higher-level counterparts.

So let me see if I get this. If I get the ubuntu package manager I should be able to check the multiverse or restricted tab which will enable me to download third party software and use the synaptic package manager to automatically unzip it and compile it and all that?

Well, I for some reason had assumed you were using Ubuntu. If you want to install Ubuntu, then sure -- everything you say above is right.

You could, I am sure, get such a package manager running on Fedora, but it will be messy, and wrong, and you really don't want to.

If you decide to stick with Fedora, the best thing to use is really yum. You can add other repositories to the /etc/yum/repos.d/ (see here: http://www.xades.com/proj/fedora_repos.html)

So to summarize: Use Fedora and yum on the command line, or install Ubuntu and then you can use Synaptic.

Thanks for the info Jameson. I have yum and I have used it to download other repositories, but I guess the bottom line question is can I download something that is not in a repository, for instance sopcast or some other p2p software, and get it to unzip and install just like if I had downloaded something from a repository? I

You mean how to install software in *.tar.gz or *.tar.bz2 format?

Yes. If there is a way to do it using the GUI in coordination with a package manager type application that would be perfect. Otherwise, I could try another command line howto but I haven't had any success with any of them so far, but if you know of one geared toward someone with no previous knowledge I'd be willing to give it a try. Thanks.

Well, often if you do enough google searching you will find at least a .rpm package of a particular third party software, if not a third-party repository you can add so you can just use yum as usual. However, there will always be cases where neither of the above options are viable, and as far as I know, there is no particularly useful automation for compiling raw source. But the usual steps are few, so its not too bad. Almost all software for GNU/Linux is built like this:

(1) tar xvjf archive.tar.bz2 OR tar xvzf archive.tar.gz, depending on what you have.
(2) cd archive/
(3) ./configure
(4) make
(5) sudo make install

HTH. I suppose you could look into Portage (Gentoo's package manager, which largely just builds stuff from source.) But again, I would invariably not recommend using multiple package managers, particularly if you are novice. So basically, I only mention this as it is a technically possible though ill-advised option.


Oh also -- zoomzilla -- when I was getting started with Fedora (I started with Fedora and used it for several years) I found www.fedorafaq.org to be quite helpful. Check it out! It may be a tad out of date (talking about FC10 not 11, 12), but I'd wager to guess that that won't matter much.

No....
Except in Gentoo, the typical package manager does not do compiling.

If you cannot find something in a repository that is compatible with your package manager, the you have to operate outside of the package manager. The details depend on what you are doing.