What useful [to a pleb] program would be a good starter to download and learn to comp
 

I have been using SuSe for a couple of years but the compiling of any program has proven beyond me, either the distro is messed up or more likely I am.

So it's time and I have read the tutorial [Thank you Jeremy] read the books [also suggested by these forum] and it is time to take the bull by the horns and download a program source code and compile it.

But what? I'd like a suggestion of something small [I've got only a 56k modem] and useful [for example on my Win machine I use something called Textedit which works really well and the closest that SuSe included is gedit] So what program that actually does something would be a good one to start with to learn this procedure?

Thank you for your patience.
j

Look for an app called checkinstall. It'll come in very handy if you plan to start compiling stuff from source (and it can itself be compiled with minimal fuss if you wish). Make sure it isn't already installed first though.

As for text editors, you almost certainly already have access to several that will whip anything Windows has to offer. Investigate the following: vim, emacs, kate (in KDE).

how about yahoo messenger.. or maybe something small like aterm. aterm is a terminal program with transparency. it's fun just to have :)

edit: are you wanting useful programs for compiling, or useful programs for day to day use? the ones above are for day to day, obviously.

ok thank you both- I was looking for something day to day though checkinstall may do the trick- another terminal when I don't use all the ones I already have probably isn't what I have in mind.

Mostly the text editors I've been able to access [so far] haven't been as quick or accurate as the texted I mentioned.

ex; format to real paragraphs- does it with a two stroke command and the words are wrapped, none of the editors I've found yet properly wrap entire words even when the proper boxes are checked.

Further question is how does one check if checkinstall is inhabiting my computer?
I just typed checkinstall in both home terminal and root and command was not found so please inform.

Thanks so far.
j

"checkinstall" is a command used in the process of compiling a program.

I'd go with the above suggestion of aterm and make sure to read the README and INSTALL files included in the .tgz

Happy compiling!
-- Poetics

I meant the checkinstall that can be found here. It is available in both binary and source packages, but I thought that as it's easy to compile it would be a good place to start, as well as coming in handy later. If the command wasn't found on your system, you probably don't have it installed.

Regarding the text editors, all those I mentioned are very configurable (and consequently often difficult to get to grips with), and will almost certainly be able to do anything you could conceivably want to do with an editor. You can download a VERY comprehensive guide to Vim (my personal favourite) here.