installing programs in linux

[Raekwon]

so i downloaded some files for xmms, and some other programs, and i come to the point where i want to install them, then i realised i didnt know how.

can anyone help me install programs? are installs for different programs the same?

the file extention is .tar.gz if that helps with the question.

 

[horndude]

tar xzvf <filename>
cd into directory created
ls to list its contents
read the readme and/or install, follow its directtions

 

[Fabyfakid]

so i downloaded some files for xmms, and some other programs, and i come to the point where i want to install them, then i realised i didnt know how.

can anyone help me install programs? are installs for different programs the same?

the file extention is .tar.gz if that helps with the question.

Check this out: it's the Linux Newbie Administrator Guide ; very useful reference for your questions.

 

[Raekwon]

thanks heaps horndude, you saved me a lot of frustration.

ok, so i extracted the files from the archive, did the ./configure and then, after it had done lots of that, it said it couldnt find GLIB 1.2.2

could someone tell me what it is, and where to find it? ive looked on linux.org, but there arent any proper matches, is there some other name for it? im guessing its got something to do with gnome... like a gnome library or something?

thanks for all the help so far, its all very much appreciated.

 

[horndude]

its one of the graphics libraries used by gnome,kde, and lots of other apps

it should be on the disk from your distro, most install it by default

most websites for linux distro's also have a package depository where you can download this stuff

There's also a possibilty the configure script is looking in the wrong place, sometimes you have to point it in the right direction with an option like:
./configure --with-glibdirectory /x/y/z----->just an example

if its there it should find that one quite easily

You really should find out what dependencies an app needs beforehand if possible or get a precompiled package to install and avoid the dependency issue altogether if you can if your a newbie

 

[Raekwon]

yeah, i saw the list of things i needed before it would install, but i have no idea which of those packages i had/didnt have i figured i would try to install it, because there wasnt a quick way of checking if i had the packages or not. ill try what you said, thanks again, you've been a big help you should be the mod for this section

 

[horndude]

This is one of the major issues facing linux, its called dependencies, one program needs several others to work, but knowing and finding out which ones are needed can be tough.

Because linux is modular there's an unbelievable number of little programs that are in a distro, and the bigger apps are a bunch of little ones run in a certain order or as needed to form something the user can actually use.If your missing one or have the wrong version, it wont work.Many are version and kernel specific, its sounds bad and kinda scary, but after some experience its not so bad, just takes some time to learn how to deal with it.Staying with the original distro's like slackware,redhat,debian, and mandrake helps, makes it easier to find what you need, especially if your going to compile stuff from source code.

 

[Raekwon]

oh, ok, yeah, that makes sense, i just saved all the "begginners courses" from linux.org so that will keep me reading for at least a few weeks. and by the end, ill have at least enough knowledge of linux to be self-sufficient, hopefully.

I still have the problem of not being able to play Audio CD's... i think the problem was something to do with it only being accesible by root or something... you said you knew how to fix it, but we never got round to actually fixing it.

 

[horndude]

If it will play as root, either change the ownership of your cdrom or add your username to the group list in /etc/group

like chown raekwon:users /dev/cdrom or add raekwon to the cdrom line in /etc/group---->sometimes that wont fix it by itself, may need to chmod u+s the appropriate programs as well so they run suid root

 

[jhunholz]

Raekwon,
What distro are you using? If you mentioned it in your posts, I guess I didn't notice. I recomend a distro like Fedora for Newbies, because it has a package manager called Yum that you can use to install programs. Yum will check what you have installed and fetch all of the dependencies that you don't have so that the new program will work. So say you wanted to install xmms, you would just open a command prompt and type: yum install xmms. Then it would install any dependencies needed, plus xmms.

When you get a bit more experienced, I recomend you give Gentoo a try. Installing it really gives you a good idea of what Linux is all about, but it also has the best package management system on the market! The installation guide is VERY good and you can literally go step by step through it. But they do a good job of explaining each step as you go.

It is also good to know how to install programs with ./configure, make, make install like you are doing now, but as you've found out it can get a bit frustrating.