Installing Programs HELP!

[ie4cb32 0]

Well i just installed linux mandrake 9 tonight. I am coming from the whole microsoft ordeal. I know installing is a whole bunch different. Can someone please help me to understand like tar.gz ...rpm. and others or sites i can go to. Also once installed how to execute the program. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

[clutch 1]

You will find several different methods of installing software in the various distros. First, you will normally have the source code with can come in .tar, .gz, .bz2, .tar.gz, etc. Think of these as "zipped" files of all the needed files you need. Now, when you see the "tar" in there, that means that it's a tarball (kind of a clump of all the files). When you see ".gz" or ".bz2", those are zipped, but with diff apps (like gzip and bzip respectively). Bzip can compress further, but gzip has been around forever and works well. With tar.gz, it's a tarball that's been gzipped, and you can either unzip it, then untar it, or just do the whole thing in one operation (refer to the manuals on those, or ask specific questions later on). After it has been opened, you can then compile it against your system (kernel source or kernel headers depending on your distro and level of setup) to either install the application or simply make the binaries and copy them to where you want later on.

 

Another method is the RPM, and that is basically a file that contains either the source (srpm I think) or the binary (pre-compiled version) of the app. You can run this, and it will, in theory, auto-magically install the app. The biggest issues with these is dependencies (where something in the RPM needs other files, typically libraries, that you don't have installed yet - think of them as prerequisites) since the RPMs aren't really standardized so authors can have various interpretations on what is needed to install the app, and can vary on the development box that they were created on. There is "apt4rpm", which simulates what APT does for Debian, but it's still sketchy and has limited functional packages that can be installed (plus it took 12 RPMs to get it to install for me, and that pretty much made me quit RH altogether).

 

Another method is a "ports" system, and that's essentially where there's a "tree" will all the apps that are available that you download, and this tree gives you a menu of what you can get (you can still install from other methods, like source if you like, but this is much easier) using a specific command. In Debian, for instance, you can use "apt-get install mozilla" to install mozilla and all its related libraries. You can also use this same program to update and upgrade your distribution, whereas RPM-based distros tend to have problems with upgrades and recommend OS replacement instead (format and reinstall).

 

Now, for a combination of both source and ports systems, you can use something like Gentoo or Sourcerer. In Gentoo, if I want install Mozilla, I just use "emerge mozilla" and it will go out, download all the needed sources, compile them against my specs (which I can tune via a make.conf file using compile flags and such) and the application will be installed and tailored (well, as much as possible) to my system. So, if I have SSE and SSE2, I can have those flags enabled and when the app is compiled it will have any features related to those flags turned on (same for using "3dnow" for AMD boxes). This is the distro I prefer for my workstations, and it has worked well for me. It does many of the same things as "APT" does for Debian, but the system relies (mostly, there are some exceptions) on the use of packages with source code and not binaries. This leaves you with applications tailored to your needs, and not what the perceived needs were of the package author who created the binary.

 

 

Now, read through this:

 

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/

 

It will explain what the "standard" directory structure is like, and will go a long way toward getting you settled down with linux. One thing that is important is the use of /opt for add-on software (like have C:\Program Files in Windows). Thanks to RH and its wild popularity but lack of standards, you now see apps getting installed in places like /usr/share, /usr/bin, /bin, etc. and they get a bit confusing. Basically, what I do is install an app to /opt, and then make a "symbolic link" (a.k.a. symlink, it's like a super-powerful shortcut) from the executable to a symlink of the same name in /usr/bin. So, let's say I installed "bluej" (a java IDE, www.bluej.org) to /opt/bluej, and the executable is "bluej" in the /opt/bluej directory. The command would look like so...

 

ln -s /opt/bluej/bluej /usr/bin/bluej

 

This would make a new symlink named "bluej" in my /usr/bin directory, and since /usr/bin is in my PATH statement (and is for all users), and can just type "bluej" at the command prompt and it will launch.

 

HTH