Thought I have the unzipping, compiling and installing of sftware finally sorted. It seems not.

I download a tar.gz package. Use gunzip. CD to the d installation directory. Read the install instructions, which tell me to ./configure, make and then make install. No problem with configure. I come to make and get the error: make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

There is definitely a makefile in the folder. I thought this was a one off, but seems to be happening regularly now. What bit am I missing?

You probably are in the wrong directory, or you get errors in ./configure phase and the Makefile (which is the files used by the make command) is not created by ./configure.

To unzip a tar.gz package use the command:
tar -xvzf <package_name>.tar.gz
in the directory this package is stored

Makefile should be written with a big M. make command will not detect a file called makefile.

Can you post the result of ./configure?

Makefile doesn't have to be capitalized, though it's recommended and usual practice.

What are the contents of it? (Not the whole thing but a sample.) If the file's there and that's what the README/INSTALL says then I'm not sure what the problem is. (You aren't reading the 'these are generic installation instructions' file when the README tells you to 'cd to the src subdirectory' or anything like that? - though 9 times out of 10 you run it from the top level.) And when you see a makefile, it is 'makefile' and not 'makefile.am' and so on, right?

But, yeah, post up significant configure results, too. You're right that it should be a slamdunk.

If you can see that there is a makefile in the directory (perhaps makefile.linux or something) then you can specify it with:
(or whatever). You'll also need the -f <filename> bit for when you do make install (make -f <filename> install)

I'm waiting for the day, the lq forums will adopt greek as it's native language...I 'll get my revenge

Don't get angry. The target of the sig is probably other native English speakers. People who's location indicate a non-english speaking locale, tend to be easier to follow than the cryptic language many cracker types use.
But the last time I commented on it, I made a typo myself. The moderator laughed so hard when he read it, he almost wet himself.

Hence my own sig is a reminder to myself.

----

One thing about the problem at hand.
A) I have a download directory in my home where I do the downloading. A person needs full access rights to compile from a tarball, and a directory with global access (like D indicates) should be mounted with the 'noexec' and 'nodev' options.
If this is a the case, a configure script may fail.
B) I have run into some tarballs without configure scripts where I needed to run 'autoconf' to generate one. If the installation directory has a config.in file, this should work if you have autoconf installed. One recent installation there wasn't a configure or Makefile. There was a Makefile.dist file so I needed to use 'make -f Makefile.dist'

___

Last note, should the word Greek be capitalized?

Actually yes, but I'm using the greek (or Greek) first letter capitalizing Rule.
In greek the names (of countries, persons etc) are written capitalized.
The inhabitants of a country are also written with the first Letter capitalized (The Greeks). Those are nouns. But you never write a adjective constructed from a noun with a capital letter. In my case greek is an adjective implying a noun (greek language). So when I use it like this I write it with low letters. It looks funny to me to write Greek, when I mean the language and not the people although the spell checker shows it as a mistake. You may not realize the difference(Greek as a noun and greek as a adjective) because in english people use the same word for those different things(think it as Jew, jewish). We don't call ourselves Greeks either in greek, It's more something like Hellines. The official english name for Greece is Hellinic Republic. Greek is something else, but that goes for many countries,we say Germany from the latin Germani(which i think means something like North neighbor) and the germans say "Deutschland"->Land of "Deutschen" which is land of Deftones. In France they use another word something like Alamani (I'm not sure I don't speak frence) which is the name of one of the many german tribes that lived in the borders of France. Anyway this is a really interesting, funny and off-topic story.

Hope you got the point. ( I know this is not good but I'm doing this misspell all the time with all the countries).

P.S. The revenge thing was just a joke. It's funny to have an English Language Lesson as a signature.

I learned a little Russian, so I'm familiar how the rules are often different, even when they are similar. Such as voicing consonants in the opposite direction. I hadn't even realized we did that in English, because I had just learned the pronounciation. So pronouncing 'dogs' with a z sound is natural without learning about voicing.

I wish I had learned another language when I was young, because I'm afraid my brain is now hard wired for one language only.

In Greece almost everyone learns English and many people also learn other foreign language, like French. I lived in Germany for 4 years back in the 80's and I learned German. In school we had French as foreign language, but I never managed to learn French. I'm thinking of starting Spanish courses, but I don't know.
I don't know your age but it's kind of hard to start learning a language, if you only speak your native language after a certain age, especially if this new language uses a different alphabet like the Russian language does.

Well actually English have a difficult pronunciation basically because in English you don't read what you see like in Greek or German. "Put" and "suck", both use a 'u', but you don't pronounce the 'u' the same way in both. "Both" and "bold" both use a 'o' but the 'o' is pronounced different in those two cases.

I tried to respect the English capitalization rule this time.
If Greek were the international language I would feel kind of strange watching so many people doing so many grammar & spelling mistakes when they are my native language. Americans, Australians and British people must have gotten used to watch their native language being slaughtered by so many people, especially the last 10 year , the INTERNET is so popular.
Sorry if my English is poor. (or should it be: Sorry if my English are poor).
In Greek this should be plural, but i can't recall the English rule.

Blood & Soldiers. My broadband connection goes down for a day and look what happens; installation tips turn into the merits of a variety of European languges.

To get back on thread, this is my configure script as shown on screen. I managed to get a bit further simply by reading it before posting: Initially, I didn't have the SDL liraries. So I got them. Now configure stops with the following error:

checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gawk... (cached) gawk
checking for g++... g++
checking for C++ compiler default output... a.out
checking whether the C++ compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of g++... gcc3
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking for main in -le... no
checking for main in -links... no
checking for life_signs in -lkenny... no
oh my god! They killed kenny
You bastards
checking for main in -lz... yes
checking for main in -lm... yes
checking for main in -lGL... yes
checking for main in -lGLU... yes
checking for sdl-config... /usr/local/bin/sdl-config
checking for SDL - version >= 1.2.0... yes
checking for main in -lSDL_ttf... yes
checking for main in -lSDL_mixer... yes
checking for main in -lSDL_image... yes
checking for guile... /usr/bin/guile
checking for guile-config... no
configure: error: guile-config required but not found

Can anyone point me in the direction of guile-config?

Obviously you need guile....http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html

Thanks for that. I got hold of, and installed Guile and then searched for some more SDL libraries and installed them. I think I have come to a complete standstill with the following error when MAKE-ing:

g++ -g -O2 -I/usr/local/include/SDL -D_REENTRANT -DDEFAULT_RESOLUTION=1 -o trackballs mmad.o gameMode.o mainMode.o glHelp.o general.o map.o player.o editMode.o ball.o game.o animated.o debris.o black.o guile.o gameHook.o cyclicPlatform.o sound.o sign.o scoreSign.o flag.o goal.o menuMode.o enterHighScoreMode.o highScore.o spike.o trigger.o modPill.o baby.o trampoline.o box.o forcefield.o switch.o hofMode.o settingsMode.o settings.o setupMode.o gamer.o smartTrigger.o pipe.o pipeConnector.o diamond.o helpMode.o animator.o cactus.o splash.o teleport.o bird.o fountain.o sideSpike.o colorModifier.o heightModifier.o sparkle2d.o image.o font.o calibrateJoystickMode.o menusystem.o weather.o -lguile -lguile-ltdl -lqthreads -lpthread -lcrypt -lm -lSDL_image -lSDL_mixer -lSDL_ttf -lGLU -lGL -lm -lz -L/usr/local/lib -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/lib -lSDL -lpthread
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lqthreads
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

What one Earth is -lqthreads?

Take of the '-l' and you have your answer. It is looking for the library 'qthreads'.
libqtthreads is supplied in the 'libquile' package.
http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/se...qthreads.so.12

So a general rule is remove the '-l' from the error message and put ''lib' on the front, and google for the result.

Another general rule is whenever adding a package like 'guile' also download and install a corresponding 'libguile' package or tarball (with the same version number.
----

<< I would feel kind of strange watching so many people doing
<< so many grammar & spelling mistakes when they are my
<< native language.

What is strange is when you get a foreign college professor, who's english is so bad, you can only understand every 3rd word.
I had one from India like that. (Actually he was much better during spring quarter, but over the Summer he would revert to his old ways.)
If you complain, you get it accused of being a racist. Across the river at MSU, things came to a head when parents and alumni chimed in.