Guest batmike Posted July 12, 2003 Report Share Posted July 12, 2003 I'm pretty new to mandrake and am having trouble installing software i download off the internet. I've been reading the documentation but it hasnt been helping too much, or i havent been reading the right stuff. My first problem is that whenever i download a .rpm file, i'm always being told that i need to download some other file, and when i download that file, i need to download more files. This just seems to go in an endless circle and i eventually give up. Is there something i'm not doing right or is there some better way of installing? My second problem is when i download a tar.gz file i have no idea where i am supposed to extract the files to. I also am not always sure what file to open the program with. What is the extension for executable files in linux? These are probably really dumb, basic questions so if someone could direct me to the documentation with these answers, that would be good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted July 12, 2003 Report Share Posted July 12, 2003 I'd be happy to answer your questions, because they are so basic that everyone assumes that everyone else doesn't need this information and it is hard to find it spelled out anywhere. (That's not meant as an insult....I had the same questions when I first started but was afraid to ask them...at least the second one). First of all, if you are still using 8.1 you will have those 'circular dependency' issues with almost every RPM you download, because alot of stuff is now built for newer versions of Mandrake. The best way to handle this if you are using 9.1 and having this problem is to use urpmi. You configure your removable media sources and some ftp sources before you use it. Here is a site that makes that part easy: http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/ After you've defined all your sources and you want to install an rpm that you've downloaded, you go to the directory you downloaded it in in a console window and type urpmi name-of-rpm.rpm and urpmi finds out what dependencies it has and what dependencies those dependencies have and tells you and if those files are found within the sources you have defined, it will tell you which disk to put in or it will download them from the proper place automatically. Typically, the sources for your disks are already defined if you installed urpmi at installation time (most likely you did). Now, for the *.tar.gz/*.tar.bz2 question. You can extract them wherever you want. I created a /tmp directory in my /home/omar directory and that is where I put all mine. Some people like to extract them into /tmp or /var/tmp, but it doesn't really matter, as long as you have permission as your regular user for the directory. Typically, you'll want to extract as your regular user, run ./configure as regular user, run make as regular user and run make install as root. The typical routine for most *.tar.gz/*.tar.bz2 files is this: tar -zxvf mydownloadedprogram.tar.gz cd mydownloadedprogram (the directory it created when you extracted it....usually has the same name as the tar.gz file, but without the extension. Sometimes it is different, though, so you can do an ls to see what it's actual name is) ./configure make <<su to root here>> make install Some programs are different, so it is a wise idea to always read the README and/or INSTALL files found within the new directory first. Some people delete this directory once the program is installed and others like to keep it around. Some Makefiles have a make uninstall routine in them to make it easy to uninstall the program if you want, others don't. Hope this helps a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted July 12, 2003 Report Share Posted July 12, 2003 And executable programs in linux can have no extension or they can have an sh or csh extension or even a strange extension like myprogram.heyimanexecutable That's an exaggeration, but you would be surprised. Also the command above for extracting was for *.tar.gz. For *.tar.bz2 you would use tar -jxvf mydownloadedfile.tar.bz2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qnr Posted July 12, 2003 Report Share Posted July 12, 2003 As far as determining which are executables, there are a number of ways, one is to use -F with ls terry@timestorm: /home/terry/htmldoc/htmldoc-1.8.23 21:59:03 $ ls -F cgi-bin/ config.status* fonts/ htmldoc.list.in Makefile.in zlib/ CHANGES.txt configure* gui/ htmldoc.plist png/ COMPILE.txt configure.in htmldoc/ jpeg/ README.txt config.h COPYING.txt htmldoc.icns Makedefs setup.xpm config.h.in data/ htmldoc.info Makedefs.in testsuite/ config.log doc/ htmldoc.list Makefile visualc/ Any files that are suffixed with an asterisk ("*") are executable. You can also use the file command: terry@timestorm: /home/terry/htmldoc/htmldoc-1.8.23 22:02:33 $ file cgi-bin/ setup.xpm htmldoc.info configure cgi-bin/: directory setup.xpm: X pixmap image text htmldoc.info: ASCII text configure: Bourne shell script text executable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest batmike Posted July 16, 2003 Report Share Posted July 16, 2003 I've now successfully installed the newest Gaim from a tar.gz file, but i'm having some problems. 1. The installer by default installed gaim to /usr/local/bin and using the terminal i go to that folder and see there are 2 files in there. When I type in 'gaim' to run it, it says it cannot find that file even though it is there. The only way i can run gaim is by going in to Nautilus, right clicking the 'gaim' file, and choose open. Does anyone know what the problem is here? 2. I'm having trouble adding Gaim to the main Mandrake menu. I ran MenuDrake, made a new application, and gave what I thought was the correct command to run it, but its not even showing up in the menu. Whats the problem? Is there something else I have to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted July 16, 2003 Report Share Posted July 16, 2003 When installing from a tarball do ./configure --prefix=/usr and everything '/usr' will go to /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc..... In a terminal do echo $PATH to see your path. If /usr/local/bin isn't 'in your $PATH', you'll need a $PATH line in your ~/.bashrc. Try editing the System Menu as root, or your $USER menu as root. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted July 16, 2003 Report Share Posted July 16, 2003 If it installed it in /usr/local/bin, then the command is /usr/local/bin/gaim For security reasons, if you are in a directory that contains an executable you wish to run, you cannot just type the name of the executable, you have to type: ./nameofexecutable If you just type the name of the executable, it looks in your $PATH for the executable. You can add /usr/local/bin to every users' PATH, by opening up /etc/rc.sysinit and look for the line: PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin change it to PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin You can even add /usr/local/sbin, just in case other new programs get installed there. Usually, though sbin is for system executables and /usr/local/whatever is for programs mainly used by regular users, so it would be contradictory to have a system executable in /usr/local/sbin, although the *.tar.gz of iptables puts itself there. Anyway, after editing /etc/rc.sysinit, you'll still have to add to your PATH in case you don't want to boot right away, so you can open a terminal as your regualr user and type: PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin and hit enter. Then type export PATH and hit enter. Then you should be able to just type gaim and get gaim to start. Edit: bvc gave the Readers' Digest Condensed Version ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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