i have struggeled even since i switched to linux with these files. i have no idea how to install their content. actually, i want to find a network-game, either strategy or 3d shooter, to play against my roommate over the internet. he uses windows, i don't have windows at all since i lack a code to install it.

when i find those files, i read things like this:
unfortunately, i don't understand a word of the tutorials about this issue. is there anyone who knows a place where it is explained easily? maybe in here already?

best regards
ungua; and if you know a game i might be able to run after download or install it through yast or something, please tell me, too...

yep. You probably need SDL.
You may download it in tar.gz format from there ?

It's really easy. Open a console, go to the folder where
the tar.gz file is and then do

tar -xvzf <filename>.tar.gz
to uncompress this.
read the instalation notes, its probably in a file called INSTALL or README:
less INSTALL
or
less README.
(navigate with the arrows, UP,DOWN, and press q to quit)
In most cases all you need to do is:
su is for getting a root console, for installing
exit is for leaving root console.

That's all.

...and since you are using SuSE, you might want to install the SDL rpm packages instead of compiling the sources (the SDL_mixer is there, I am not sure about the runtime libraries, but I guess the SDL and SDL-devel packages will be fine)

But it's always better to compile the programs by your self.
In the tutorials section of LQ forums you will see how to compile programs,
(actually it's more or less what i wrote you before),
AND WHY it is better to compile the programs by yourself.

Hmm, I am not sure if I could sign that for SuSE. My experience is that self-compiled packages cause often trouble. I don't know the reason, but maybe this is because SuSE has slightly different organization. For newbies I would recommend the rpm's anyway.

yes, and i am still very . but i saved your text and have a try as soon as i have som spare time! thank you!

regards
ungua

While I appreciate what the tutorial you reference is trying to point out, it's wrong.

When using a "everything but the kitchen sink" distro like redhat, fedora, suse, drake et all, you should use the binary package *first* and compile from source only as a last resort. Here's why ...

You're wanting to play a game. You go grab source for SDL, the game, and all other supporting libraries (libpng is a good example). You carefully go through all the source and install everything and it works. You are happy.

Now move forward a month. You're wanting to update your system, and try out your distro's version of <insert cool software here>. You run the package tool, which connects to the update server and pulls down the software you want to try. It installs it and it segfaults everytime you try to start it up. Why?

Well, if you remember what you had to install for that game a month ago to work (which is unlikely), you recall that you had to install libSDL and libpng from source. The problem is that the package system has no way to know you did that, so when it was installing your latest addition, it installed a different version of libpng. Now neither the new app, nor the game will do anything but crash...

I very much dislike packages, which is why I build *everything* from source on my BSD machines (the ports system rocks). The linux machines though, they all use either yum, or apt-get or whatever to install software. It's a PITA, but nothing compared to the PITA that can happen if you have a mix and match of libraries on your system and don't know how to to strace/ldd your way through the problem.

If the package will work, use it. If it won't get the SRPM (or whatever) and build it the way you want it. If that's not an option, then install from the tarball, but make a note of it for when something blows up (because something likely will). Being able to install from a tarball does not make you a developer, and all this doesn't even bring up the issue of *updating* the software built frmo source ...


ungua -- Your best bet to find the software like that that you need is to use one of the RPM finders available on the net.