linux question --- help please

**mp3MaStA88** · October 26th, 2004, 09:43 PM

Hey all, I have figured out how to get my wireless usb internet to work and now, like on the other linux os' that i have used, i have no clue what so ever on how to install programs. There are filesharing programs that i want to download and install as well as other programs that i would like to install, but i don't know how to compile them. Could anyone tell me or guid me through this process? ::0

**FrozenShadow23** · October 26th, 2004, 10:11 PM

depends. What type of file is it? what environment are you running and what distrobution? Post the filename's extension here and your distrobution, and I'll see what I can do.

**mp3MaStA88** · October 26th, 2004, 10:17 PM

I am running Mandrake linux 10.0 with KDE and I am trying to install a .bin or a .tgz file... I need to get Java run time on my cpu as well as limewire

**FrozenShadow23** · October 26th, 2004, 10:31 PM

Okay, extract the file to a temporary directory, possibly '/tmp' or '~/temporary' or something similar (~ means home directory if you didn't already know) and then 'cd' to the folder and bust out some 'ls' action and see what's there. You should see either a file titled "INSTALL" or "README" if you see the first, open it with 'less INSTALL' and read up, it'll tell you exactly how to install. The basic general steps that you follow for installing from source are as follows though:

[in the directory you extracted to]
./make
./make install

And that's usually it, sometimes there's more steps though, just gotta read the README or INSTALL file. Lemme know if you have any other problems.

**mp3MaStA88** · October 26th, 2004, 10:53 PM

i am still confused here... I don't get how to install it... I download the .bin and it won't open the image on the file is a command prompt... I just need to know how to install from a .bin or a .tgz

**Dswissmiss** · October 26th, 2004, 11:50 PM

tar -xvzf filename.tgz

You should be able to find anything you want in .rpm format though...
But if you get sick of that, you can always switch to something debian based (like ubuntu) and just type apt-get packagename