I am running Suse9.2 but having a few porbs understanding and finding my way around. I am totally new to linux, but really keen to switch. Some software I have managed to install as they come as an installation package (RPM files) using YAST (package manager).

But some applications come as compressed files, and i think they are source files that need compiling? they have "install" "make" "Makefile" "Configuration" etec and not sure what to do with these. I don't know if I have to log on as a super user, where to do this, how and where to open a terminal screen if I need to, where the files have to be downloaded / installed to? be default my downloaded files are saving to home/shughes/documents is this ok? do they need to be moved and installed to another location?? I am getting very confused at this point and need some very basic step-by-step instructions if poss??

Cheers

Steve

It is actuallly pretty easy. You need to uncompress the file with tar:

tar zxvf filename.tar.gz
or
tar jxvf filename.tar.bz2

then drop into the directory that is created and:

./configure
make
make install

Of all these steps, only the make install should be run as root.

One program I would strongly urge you to install and use is checkinstall . This program replaces the make install step and allows you to create and RPM package that you then install using the normal RPM or Yast tools. The reason for doing this is that it makes uninstalling a program much, much easier. So with checkinstall, the process is:

./configure
make
checkinstall (again, this is the only step that needs to be run as root)

then install with rpm or Yast.

You could try reading my article:
http://yves.gablin.club.fr/pc/linux....ftware/install
Some parts may be a little difficult to understand, though, if you're a beginner.

Yves.

Source compressed files do need compiling. You can put'em anywhere you want, you need to extract their contents (for this I recommend using some work or temp folder) and run this simple lines on console (or konsole or whatever u use in Suse):

Type this @ the dir where you extracted the contents of the source file:
./configure
make
Then enter su mode (you should know what this is) and type:
make install

Configure step takes a bit of time while your software is being configured to work in your machine. Make step takes some time depending on the software you are compiling and your computer's specs. Make install is usually fast.

Once you take all these steps (and assuming they go well) your software shoud be ready to work, look for some icons or whatnot refering to your program in the proper menus.

Good luck, hope this helps.

Most programs can be installed with 3 commands.
Some programs require options during ./configure, for example if you were compiling mplayer and you wanted gui support you would do:
You will have to check out the README for your application and see what options you have and if you need any of them.

You can download the packages where ever you want and can install them from anywhere. I personally created a /usr/src/programs folder, and move anything there before compiling it. The reason for this is many applications have a 'make uninstall' option. This will remove the program from your system without you having to do anything else. To do this however, you will need to keep the source somewhere and /usr/src/ is owned by root so I can't accidentally it, unless I'm logged in as root, which I'm normally not.

~Thomas

Thanks all,

One thing I did notice when I tried to move downloaded files I didn't get the option too. I tried to move the files from e.g. home/shughes/documents to usr/[anything] the option to move or copy wasn't available..any ideas??

Steve

To move a file use mv (mv /home/shuges/documents/yourfile /destination/folder/)
To copy a file use cp (cp /home/shuges/documents/yourfile /destination/folder/)

~Thomas