very very newb troubles with installing flash
 

alo i am very new to linux . . so you are allowed to scoff at my lack of knowledge . . .i was using redhat 8.0 and got used to that (finally) and now i'm using mandrake 9.1 and i have no idea where to look for anything . . i'm trying to install flash :cry: and well i downloaded it . . .ah ha now what?? :newbie: i apologize if this question makes ya wanna smack something . . i know i do . .. . . pls help!

If you downloaded Flash from macromedia's site it's most likely a single file with a tar.gz at the end of it correct? If so, it's best to know what that tar.gz actually is.

Unlike "winzip" and "winrar" *nix Operating systems store and compress files differently. *nix OSes are known best for being "a collection of small applications that do one thing and one thing right". In this case, the packing and compression of the file are two different programs (steps). YOu use one program to pack all the files into a single file and then another program to compress the one file.

These two steps usually use the following programs;

tar: tar takes a collection of files and creates a single file or 'tarball' out of them. This makes it eaiser to move and manage the files.

gzip: gzip is a compression program that takes a file and compresses it, very much like Winzip or Winrar for Windows. So once you create a tarball, the best thing to do is to compress it, using gzip, to make the file size smaller.

files with an appended "tar.gz" mean that it's tarballed (tar) and compressed (gzip)

---------------------------------

Now im assuming you have a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and with that, comes a bunch of programs that make this process very easy to do but lets not go that route, Im going to teach you how to do this by hand, as it will get you familiar with the operating system at a more powerful and personal level.


First and foremost, you need to understand how to navigate through directories and files in the console. Do you know how to do this?

(look in your book you jsut bought and look up topics related to 'console navigation' or 'cd' 'ls' 'mv' 'cp' 'view' and reply back to this thread.)

Assuming you know how to navigate through the filesystem in teh console, cd into the directory that has the flas file you just downloaded

and type (assuming the file ends in a .tar.gz or .tgz (same thing);

# tar -zxvf flash_file.tar.gz

the first part "tar" tells the operating system to execute (or "run") the tar program. the letters after the "-" are arguments to pass to the tar program.

z = zip (or gzip) is/was used to compress this file so read it like it were zipped!)

x = extract contents from the zipped file

v = verbose which means it will print to the screen (console) what the program is actually doing, you'll see lots of lines scrolling

f = I don't remember, nor do i have access to it's mannual at the moment but it means something important so keep it!

so those are the arguments or easily understood as 'options' to tell the tar program...

Now, once this is done doing it's thing, list the current and you'll see a directroy named the same thing as the flash file you downloaded. Go into that directory and do;

# view INSTALL
or
# view README

INSTALL and README are text files you'll need to read. They explain how to install the flash program.

Flash, if i can remember correctly, has there own little install system so it shouldn't be to hard.

*note - if you ever have questions about a certain program, at the console type;

# man name_of_program

and it'll bring up a mannual on how to use it.


like

# man tar
or
# man ls

try this:

tar -zvxf name.tar.gz

open konqueror / galeon or whatever, (must be ROOTed)

copy the flash*.so to the plugin folder of mozilla. (ie: "usr/local/mozilla")

Open mozilla.

Should be there.

If you want the other browsers to recognize the plugin, set the plugin path for those browsers to the plugin folder of mozilla.