Linux-Mandrake trouble

[Kuja]

ok, it may not be a major problem but here it is:

when I try to start the program 'everybuddy' I see the loading thing at the bottom and it loads for a little bit then disappears. and guess what happens, everybuddy does not appear. I try loging out and restarting but neither of these options work.

also when I download a program off of download.com when i get it (usually it is .tar.gz or .tar) I don't know what to do, I used the archiver but that does not help, I can extract it but when I try and start the program it does not work. I downloaded Audio Galaxy and tried that but that did not work, then I downloaded the napster client, that did not work either. am I supposed to compile something? or what?

also I need a good small proxy program that will work on a win box, we use AnalogX Proxy but that works with only HTTP and SHTTP(HTTPS?). I need a proxy program that will let me download from FTP sites and all.

and I want to get wine so I can play some win games on my linux box, BUT i don't know how to get that either, when I get to the winehq.com website and goto the download section it just gives me a bunch of sites but I don't know what to do. I also need help on how to work wine, and if I can install win apps through wine.

sorry if this is getting to be a long post, I usually have lots of problems :D

and does anyone know where I can get a @linux.com related email address? It would be great if there was. I know of the linuxmail.org one but i don't like that one (I have always had problems with outblaze).

well I think thats all I have to say :D

[irlandes]

It is too easy to tell you to look in the Newbieized Help Files, or to do a search.

Alas, with linux, you are in a catch-22. Until you get some experience, tech help simply doesn't make sense when you find it. Yet, to get experience, you need to be able to understand the technical stuff. Sigh.

So, first, accept a significant start-up time for linux, as frustrating as it might be. I usually recommend not getting too involved in exciting applications at first, and just roaming around linux, looking at stuff, and reading man pages for any command you find.

Also, look with KDE or your other chosen GUI at files and directories.

Learn how to open a terminal from KDE or your GUI, and how to run a simple command. For example, man cp or something like that. How to exit man...

Then, after a few days, look at NHF's for instructions on installing .tar or .gz files. Just remember that instructions you find may not work for all downloads.

For example, some will be built with INSTALL or MAKE or other methods, and some will simply execute their setup when you run the file. When they came out some time ago with Star Office 5.1, people were going bananas trying to follow the NHF stuff, and S.O. was designed with it's own setup method.

Sorry to be basic, but linux is not instant gratification by any means. In my opinion, and others will disagree, one needs to spend some time just learning linux before getting engrossed in applications.

[Tyr-7BE]

As far as your tar problems go, once you've extracted them, there should be a README somewhere, or even better there should be an INSTALL option. Usually, you become root, type "./configure", then type "make" and "make install". Simple as that :)
For the everybuddy problem, go to a terminal window, and type "everybuddy" (usually this will work). If you get an error message, then you can tell us what it is and you can go from there.
As for a proxy, I don't know of any because I don't bother to use them, but check out http://www.tucows.com/ for great linux downloads. Might also wanna try http://freshmeat.net . There are plenty of firewall scripts at tucows, if that's what you're after.
As for wine, go to one of the download sites and download it. What browser are you using? If it's an ftp site, there are plenty of ftp clients out there, some of them with a gui (I hate gui ftp clients, but that's just me :D). Try gftp, the gnome ftp client. It's just like downloading anything else. You should be able to get wine in a .tar.gz file and then go from there the same way you compile other stuff.
What distro are you using? There are a lot of variables dependent on the distro.