The oddities of Linux
 

What is the deal with all of the oddities of Linux; when I downloaded a program for windows all it was was an executable, that’s was basically it.
With Linux there is tar.gz - MD5 Checksum - binaries - RPM & yum packages
What is all of this? and which is the program?

Perhaps these links will enlighten you.

I have Linux installed, now how do I work some stuff like installing software?
# I can't figure out what software I want and how to install/uninstall it
The table of equivalents, replacements, analogs of Windows software in Linux
# Find software here
Freshmeat
Sourceforge
rpmfind
# Guides to software management
LNAG: 4.5 Package installation and rpm package manager
Rute Guide's software explanation
You might want to check out CheckInstall to manage source code installations/uninstallation

file.tar.gz is the program -- it's just compressed

You will need to decompress it

for tar.gz you use:
tar -zxvf file.tar.gz

Then you cd into the folder it extracted to ( cd ./file), then you compile it. Usually that entails:

./configure
make
su
make install


Unless it's already compiled, in which case you just type ./runprogram -- where runprogram is whatever the name is (use the "ls" command to get an idea)

So why so many different things, its like they try and make it hard.

think of .tar.gz and .rpm files as rar and zip files.

Think of yum or rpm as the equivalent of Windows Installer

Think of .exe files on Windows as pigeons who crap all over the place, leaving poo in %temp% and making a general mess of your filesystem thanks to clueless so-called "release engineers" who have no respect for the Windows Logo guidelines which Microsoft laid out, wheras most Linux developers are a little more respectful about tracking what belongs where on your filesystem.

How's that for a smartass but correct and topical answer? :D

(it's been a long day)

Seriously though, tar.gz and .rpm are simply different archive types, both of which contain files as well as directives which tells (yum|rpm|YaST|emerge|insert your favorite install manager here) how to install the program, what goes where, and on most recent Linux distributions, what the prerequisites are so you can be prompted to resolve the dependencies before installing an app which can break if you don't have what is required first.

With security and choice come steeper learning curves, but I find Linux much easier to use and configure than Microsoft.

It's their way or no way with Microsoft, with Linux comes choice and difficulty. Freedom is much more difficult to handle than is slavery.

Makes sense

Also keep in mind that Linux is a totally open system. Different people like to do things there own way, and since they had that choice they took it. It can certainly be confusing for the new user. There are tons of different package management systems. RPM, Portage, Apt-get, ect. Then there are the distributions that use the same package manager but don't have packages that work from one distro to another because of dependencies...

What a lot of people don't realize is binaries in Windows are just as dependent on external libraries as packages in Linux. The difference in Windows is Microsoft supplies 99% of those libraries and because there are no other "distributions" of Windows you can assume everyone will have a certain version with certain options enabled.

With Linux you can't make that assumption, because the open source nature gives the distributor and the user all the control in the world when it comes to changing things. As a result binary packages can get messy because you have to have so many different version to satisfy most people, and even then you really can't always satisfy everyone. That is why I always prefer to just build things from source.

like jtshaw said: there is no THEY as opposed to US
totally and compleetly decentralized and circular with absolutely no oversight or central vision whatsoever. Just the thing the entire world could be without ...... well .... white man paradigm.

Personally, I believe that FreeBSD has a better software management system. There are packages, which are precompiled software that may be gotten with pkg_add -r. There are also ports, which are basically the source code of the programs, along with the makefiles. You go download the tgz file, then run make install clean in the directories. It'll download the actual source in a tbz archive, along with the sources for any dependencies that aren't present, and install them all. Ports take a long time to compile, especially when several dependencies are needed, but are almost guarenteed to install..