Installing Apps for a Real Newbie !

[aslnetusa]

I just installed Mandrake 7.2 my first experience with Linux and it has been delightful. Can someone please tell me how to install downloaded apps ? I know next to nothing about the file structures or command line stuff, so please feel free to dummify it for me.

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recovering Windows victim

[Tiger]

aslnetusa,

It depends on whether you've downloaded an RPM or the source for a program.

If it's an RPM just use the RPM manager that comes with KDE. If it's source you'll need to open up a terminal in X and su to root. Once there, change to the place where you've downloaded the source with this command cd /home/"username", where username is the non-priveleged user you set up at install, without the quotes.

Do an ls to see if the file is there. If it is type tar -xzvf "filename".tar.gz . This will unpack the source code from the tarball and give you a nice listing of all of the included files. You next need to open two files and read them. Type pico README and after you've done that type pico INSTALL. Both of these files will include, hopefully, detailed instructions on configuring and installing the program. Your milelage may vary because it seems that some programmers are better at writing code than writing documentation.

Usually the next steps are;
1. ./configure
2. make
3. make install

It could be different and that's why you need to read the README and INSTALL files. IMHO if you download a package that doesn't have at least this basic level of documentation delete it and try to find another solution or application.



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Badges? We don't need no stinking badges.

[mattmorrow]

Two common application bundling formats are "packages" and "tar" files. Packages can be in various formats with the RedHat ".rpm" format dominating. You might decide to use whatever format is the "default" for Mandrake.
For .rpm's, you just download it, then as root, install it. I usually use "rpm -ivh package_name". You'll want to be located in the download directory - or specify the full path to the .rpm. Packages contain lots of data - and even a database to house information about the packages - dependencies, where to install, list of contents, is it installed on your system already, version, etc. It is a very comprehensive package. The basics are easy, but you can do a lot more then just install.

tar files usually only contain the software files for that application - no dependency checking, etc. Often they are compressed in gzip or bzip format. You usually create a staging directory and put the tar file in it. Then extract the files using "tar -xvzf tarfile_name.tar.gz", if zipped, or "tar -xvf tarfile_name.tar" if not. Once unzipped, you'll usually see a readme that tells you what to do next. Often, it's an installation shell script.
Note that these explanations refer to applications already "built". That is, compiled and linked into executable binaries.
Sometimes you'll want to download a package or tar file of the source files themselves. That will require that you "build" them - usually with the highest level Makefile in the new directory structure.
There's lot's of documentation out there on these utilities. Start with "man tar" and "man rpm". The tar man pages can be confusing because of tar's roots as an archiving/backup/restore utility. If you need more basic or practical examples of real-world tar'ing, please post and I'll paste in quite a few for you. Linux For Dummies is also a good beginners book.
HTH, Matt

[aslnetusa]

Thanks to both. I'll try the rpm method, sounds easier.