Total newbie - help with installing downloaded applications.
 

I am a total newbie when it comes to Linux, trying to find my way around. I am, however an experienced Windows user.

Here is my problem: when I download a .zip or .rar file for Windows environment, I unzip it, find the executable file (normally .exe), execute it and the program is installed.

In Linux, the downloaded/zipped file seems to get unzipped, but that’s where I get lost - how do I install it?

Specifically, I have a distribution without Firefox and Thunderbird. How do I install them. I checked various guides but couldn’t find an answer. Hope it’s possible...

I appreciate any help and thank you for your patience to read and respond.

It all depends on what distro you have. Every distro has a package manager that downloads and installs packages for you. You don't have to download the package separately by yourself usually.

Here's a guide on how to do it in Debian-based distros:

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/winuxinstall.php

If your using a .rpm based os then you will be using rpm files.

if you download one here is what you do.

say you download somefile.rpm to your /home/MYHOMEDIR/

then after you download it type the following into your terminal

The above will install an rpm package which is used with redhat (Fedora), Mandrake, Suse, and a few others.

>> replace MYHOMEDIR with your home dir, most likely your username.

That's true... if you actually download the .rpm independent of a package manager. Even RPM distros have package managers with repositories of software and resolved dependencies.

Here is my specific situation: I originally installed Mandrake distro, but got lost right away and removed it. Than I heard that Linspire is the easiest for Window users. Last night I learned that till September 6 they give it away for free. So I downloaded it, installed it and find it OK- easier to maneuver.
So here I am, with a Debian flavor from a company that wants you to pay $20 to $40 a year to download from their library. They discourage you from being independent. Hell, that's why I am trying to get away from Windows. Don't need another company hovering over my head.

Question - would the way aysiu suggested work with Linspire as well?

Not sure never used it >< sorry..

but here is what i can tell you.

In your life with linux , or unix based os, you are going to try more then a few. In fact you will try a lot of distros. I can tell you from personal experience that for starters Fedora is pretty darn easy. No matter what distro you use your going to have to learn the package manager they use. RPM based systems could be very annoying at first until you learn the basics of rpm, or just learn to install programs like apt-get on fedora.

On another note, most distros come with great programs that you can use to install commonly used programs like on fedora to install firefox and thunderbird (if you didn't choose them in the beginning of the installation) you could use yum (a program used to install /update/ delete packages and lots more).

here is a quick example

and for thunderbird

these commands will install the following programs and add them to your program bar.

good luck!!

Sorry to butt in; but what is RPM ?

And where does suse stand in this

thanks

The best way to get and install software for Linspire is Klik, Klikit, Synaptic, or Apt-Get. Do a google search for these.

The "pay-for" Linspire offers is called CNR (click and run), which is wrote just for the Linspire OS.
Where the trouble lies is when a person combines the Linspire pay-for one and then also uses the ones mentioned above. In other words, just use one or the other, NOT BOTH or your system may get fried.

Hope this helps.....

I haven't been successful with Klikit! or Synaptic in Linspire, but it may just be me. When I try to use Klikit! in Linspire 5.0, I get this error message, but, by all means, try it out yourself and see if it works for you. I also tried following these instructions to get Synaptic working properly in Linspire, but a lot of programs wouldn't really install properly.

Again, if it works for you, great. If it doesn't, that's because it's not supposed to. According to Linspire's website:

WARNING! -- both apt-get and synaptic can break a Linspire box since it might overwrite some Linspire specific stuff with standard Debians which might break some programs (apt-get works but it's not advised to be used by Linspire, Inc. staff).

My suggestion would be to try Klikit! and Synaptic on Linspire. If they don't work, either pay the money for CNR or use Mepis instead, which fully supports Synaptic and is just as point-and-click as Linspire but far more flexible. (The link I gave you earlier about installing software was created with screenshots from Mepis.)

I am a newbie too, but here is what I have learned: The .tar extension stands for Tape Archive- it was originally designed for tape backup.
It is also used to package multiple files together into a single package, or tarball. When this tarball is compressed with the GNU gzip program, the extension then becomes tar.gz.

So to install .tar.gz files, 1st you need to figure out where you want to unzip and untar the file, and this may or may not require creating a new directory. The command to unzip is: gzip -d filename.tar.gz.

This will expand and replace the compressed file with the tar archive: filename.tar. Next, you need to untar the file into a directory tree.

"Before un-tar-ing the file, you should look at its tar listing to see whether it was created with a directory as the first entry. You can use the following command to see whether the first entry in the tar file is a directory: tar -tvf tarfile-name | more
If so, the tar file creates the directory when it's expanded. If no directory is listed at the top level of the tar file, all the files at the top level are extracted into the current directory. In this case, you need to make a directory and move< the tar file into it before you expand it." - Using Linux, 5th Ed. pg. 176

The command to expand (untar) the source tree in the tar fileis:
tar -xvf tarfilename.tar

After that, the installation varies, depending on how the software package was written. You can look for a readme.1st file for instructions. "The typical installation process involves editing the file named Makefile to edit the destination directories where the software places its compiled binaries. You then usually run make followed by make install." - Using Linux, 5th Ed.

When I installed the latest version of Firefox, I had to unzip and untar, but I dont recall having to edit a makefile. I believe there was an executible of some sort that I was able to run at that point, but I'm not sure. I've been learning a LOT of new Linux related concepts these last 2 weeks and my brain is about full.

My advice is to READ and RESEARCH EVERYTHING- So far, I have found that a lot of information I get is only partial information, requiring me to compile my knowledge from several sources. Hope this helps. Good luck in your Linux adventures!