On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.questions, in article
Post by madd9308Very new to Linux here...installed kubuntu
Point your news tool at "alt.os.linux.ubuntu" - it's a _relatively_ new
(appeared on my server in November 2005), and runs about 22 articles a day
(compared to about 36 articles a month here). The people are friendly, and
helpful.
Post by madd9308downloaded a files named kdegames-3.5.4.tar, kdeutils-3.5.4.tar, and
kdeaddons-3.5.4.tar.
From where? And more importantly, why? _Very_big_clue_ - don't download
tarballs when your distribution already provides those packages. The
reason for the caution is that your distribution audits the files, to make
sure they are clean, AND that there are no compatibility problems. While a
tarball is generally the lowest common denominator - usable over the widest
number of distributions and releases, it takes substantially more work on
your part to make sure you have all the needed parts and that they will
work together.
If you haven't discovered the 'man' (manual) pages that should be on your
system, start with 'man man' which gives you the manual page on the manual.
Use the arrow keys to move around, and press 'q' to quit when done. You'll
also want to read the man page on 'apt' and 'apt-get' which are Debian tools
to get and install packages.
Post by madd9308How do I install these? And remember <smile>, I am VERY new with Linux...
which is why I _REALLY_ don't recommend this. The short version is that you
first find out what is in that tarball. From a command line, run
tar -tf /path/to/kdegames-3.5.4.tar
which will list a bunch of files. Do the filenames begin with a directory
name like
kdegames/CHANGES
kdegames/INSTALL
kdegames/README
notice - no leading slash. The un-tar operation will create a directory
(here named 'kdegames') in the directory where the tarball is now located,
and drop files into that. If the listing does not have that leading
directory name, like
CHANGES
INSTALL
README
the un-tar operation is going to drop the files "right here", so create
an appropriate directory ('mkdir kdegames') and move the tarball in there
so things are easier to clean up afterwards. The other possibility is
that the listing will show a directory as above, but with a leading slash
/kdegames/CHANGES
/kdegames/INSTALL
/kdegames/README
This is a sign of an inconsiderate package author, and many people refuse to
install such packages.
Next, you need to "unpack" the package. You say that the file name ends in
.tar, and not .tar.gz (or .tgz) which indicates the file is compressed using
gzip, or not .tar.bz2 which indicate that the file is compressed using bzip2,
or even tar.Z (for the ancient 'compress' algorithm). That's a bit unusual.
'cd' to the directory where the tarball is located and give the command
tar -xvhf kdegames-3.5.4.tar OR
tar -zxvhf kdegames-3.5.4.tar.gz OR
tar -zxvhf kdegames-3.5.4.tgz OR
tar -jxvhf kdegames-3.5.4.bz2
(depending on the final file extension). 'cd' into the directory it has
created and start reading those files named with all UPPER-CASE letters.
What happens next is going to depend on what's in those files. Most probably,
you'll have to compile things - possibly starting by running a configuration
script named ./configure. Then there will be a 'Makefile' that you should
read to see what it's going to do - where is it going to install things,
what things, and so on. The instructions will likely then tell you to
run 'make' which actually compiles the program and makes it into an
executable, and then become root and run 'make install' to actually install
the executables and documentation. I really can not tell you what else would
be needed, because each tarball is different to one extent or the other.
Now, do you see why you should be using your distribution's package manager?
I've gone a page and a half here, and I'm just giving 'generic' instruction,
because the specifics vary so much. Oh, and all of this assumes that you
have the required libraries installed, the compiler, and other tools like
'make'... No, I'm not joking.
So, plug in 'alt.os.linux.ubuntu' into your news reader, and at least scan
the last 400 articles that were posted to that group (so you have some idea
of what the questions and answers look like), and ask how to install the
[k]ubuntu packages that you need. It will be a LOT easier.
Old guy