how do you install when a program is not a slackware package

the program that i what to install is

amanda-2.4.4.tar.gz

i read the install file it tels me that i have to run

configure than make than make install

this does notwork and i don't know how to deal with dependencies

i am use to RPM and apt for debian

Post specific error messages if you want specific help.

Install the dependencies first, obviously, then the program. Follow the error messages.

# Guides to software and installation
Compiling Software Help File
LNAG - How do I install a program I downloaded from the Internet?
Rute Guide's software explanation

Debian uses apt-get which resolves dependencies for you, there is an apt4rpm available for Redhat as well.

My current favorite distro and package manager is Gentoo and Portage. It is all source based and compiled for my machine.

To start the tarball needs to be extracted; tar -xzvf amanda-2.4.4.tar.gz

That should create a directory for it; usually called the name-version of the program. So for this case it woud probably be amanda-2.4.4, so then;

cd amanda-2.4.4
./configure
make
make install


Any problems should be alerted during the ./configure process. Watch to see if it appears to complete normally or does it report an error and terminate. If it reports an error, then you can post back what the program is requiring and then we may be able to assist. Normally the INSTALL and README files cover the requirements fairly well for the programs. So look in there first to see if it mentions what the error message was indicating. Then you will need to provide what is required in order to proceed, with the ./configure again until it completes normally.

monkeymartin,
installation from source on slackware 9.0 has no problems what so ever.

if you type in source directory: ./configure --help you will get list of options that can be (or in sertain cases should be) provided to a configure script. Specifically you will see three following lines:


--with-user=USER force execution to USER on client systems required
--with-group=GROUP group allowed to execute setuid-root programs required
--with-owner=USER force ownership of files to USER default == --with-user value

That basically means you have to provide those options. You might ask what values they should be set to? I have no idea. At this point you really shoule read manual for this package or may be even go to their mailng list and ask them questions. But just for kicks I downloaded the source and configured it like this:
./configure --with-user=root --with-group=root
then i did
make
and everything compiled with no errors.
i also tried:
./cofigure --with-user=amanda --with-group=amanda
and again everything compiled perfectly.

The last step is install. If you did not specify PREFIX to configure script the default value is /usr/local. That is it is equivalent to :
./configure --prefix=/usr/local <the rest of options>
Which means that all executable programs related to the package will go to the /usr/local/bin. All libraries to /usr/local/lib. All configure scripts /usr/local/etc. General resources to /usr/local/share. And C/C++ include files (that is if your package does have some dynamically/staticaly linked libraries) into /usr/local/include.

To be able to install into /usr/local you need to be a root. so if you have access to root account then after make is finished you have to become root:
su
Then type your root password.
then type :
make install

If you do not have access to root. Then you will have to install it in your home directory. E. g. :
./configure --prefix=/home/monkeymartin/amanda <the rest of the options>
inside you will end up with bunch of dirs like:
$HOME/amanda/bin
$HOME/amanda/share
$HOME/amanda/lib
etc.
note in this case $HOME/amanda/bin should be in your PATH variable and probably $HOME/amanda/lib in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable.

That is it. As i stated above it compiles with no errors on stock Slackwared 9.0 with no tweaks. As for the question to what values you should set --with-user and --with-group options I don't know and on this forum the only person who can recomend you those values is the person that uses this program.