Dumb question about tar.gz files and Debian

[oldgeezer]

Apologies to the smart guys! I have downloaded Thunderbird, which seems only available in the tar.gz format that I normally avoid. When I clicked the file, I got a lovely selection of files and directories, none of which provided that elusive executable, nor a readme file on installing for dumbos like me. I'm sure some folks are sick of hearing questions about this, but please will one kind soul point me at a link or FAQ to help me do the necessary? Long scripts I cannot manage, nor detailed IT-speak relating to console commands.
Thanks a £m/$b,
OG.

[Cuddles]

OldGeezer,

I am not a guru, nor do I confess to any honors of that title, but, as for your question, I think I can help, I hope...

You need to do most of this kind of stuff in a SHELL, or a CLI, or the little icon on the bottom of the screen that looks like a monitor with a shell in front of it...

What it appears to me is, you have a "source" package... In other words, you have to compile the source to create the executable you really want...

First problem, tarballs...

Get into a shell, and at your prompt, do a "cd" to the directory/folder where the tarball is located...

cuddles@Polaris:/gblusr/Installs$ cd KonqPlugIns
cuddles@Polaris:/gblusr/Installs/KonqPlugIns$ ls
11404-wmfthumbnail-0.2.tar.bz2  wmf-thumbnail-plugin-0.2.tar  wmfthumbnail.la
readme.txt                      wmfthumbnail.desktop          wmfthumbnail.so
cuddles@Polaris:/gblusr/Installs/KonqPlugIns$

As my example above, I have the "cuddles@Pollaris:" prompt, and what follows that, "/gblusr/Installs/KonqPlugIns$" is the directory/folder I am sitting in... Doing the "ls" command is a directory listing command, showing what files exist in that folder....

Now some fun, getting to the files inside a tarball...

if the file is in the form of -=- do this command
-----------------------------------------------------
xxxxxxxxxxxx.tar.gz -=- tar xvfz xxxxxxxxxxxx.tar.gz
xxxxxxxxxxxx..tar.bz2 -=- tar xvfj xxxxxxxxxxxx..tar.bz2
xxxxxxxxxxxx..tar -=- tar xvf xxxxxxxxxxxx..tar

So, since your file is a tar.gz file type, you would do the following command:

tar xvfz filename.tar.gz

the above command will create a folder named "filename" in the folder you have the tarball in, and in the "filename" folder, you will find your source...

Do a "cd" to the "filename" folder, and then the magic begins...

You should find a README or a INSTALL file that should be in text readable format, this file will explain in more detail, what you need to do to compile the source, and install it...

Usuall compile/install instructions follow, closely, to this:

$ make

Some installs from source are vastly different, and have more commands that need to be run, hence, why a README or INSTALL file should be included with the source package.

Hope this helps,
Ms. Cuddles

[baldyeti]

Mozilla-thunderbird is available as a debian package. Use your favorite package manager (kpackage, synaptic) if you don't want to use the CLI.

[oldgeezer]

Many thanks to you both. I prefer the all-Debian package solution simply because anything I do at a command prompt is performed as a recipe in total ignorance of its meaning. I am unfamiliar with kpackage, so that seems like a good first step.
OG.
Update: Well kpackage didn't work for me on this. I didn't understand what to do in the 'Settings', amongst other things.
I tried apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird. It stalled on 'getting headers', then suggested doing an apt-get update. This stuck on 'getting headers' at 28%. Not having much joy this morning! More suggestions?

[user unknown]

Mmmmh...

... nor detailed IT-speak ... Thanks a £m/$b

[baldyeti]

More suggestions?

1) Don't do anything: just use mozilla's mail module, which is virtually identical to thunderbird!

2) If you insist on the stand-alone mail client version, you'll need to solve your apt-get issues. I seem to recall somebody complaining recently about one of the servers included in the default knoppix /etc/apt/sources.list not being online all the time. ftp2.debian.de or ftp2.de.debian.org, I think. Replace that with simply ftp, or better yet replace all german mirrors with servers closer to your place, then run "apt-get update" in order to retrieve the latest list of available packages. Then "apt-get -s -t unstable install mozila-thunderbird" will show you whether the package is installable without wanting to upgrade a whole gamut of dependencies. If the output looks reasonable, go ahead and rerun the above command without the "-s" (simulate) flag.

Sorry but Knoppix probably is not one's best bet to benefit from debian's touted seemlees upgrades. That's because it happily mixes stable/unstable and even non-official package pools in order to offer us a bleeding-edge linux demo system. Installing from kanotix or mepis is supposed to result in a purely sid-based system, with smoother upgrade path.

[oldgeezer]

That's exceedingly helpful, B.Y. - thank you. I had no idea it was so fraught. Guess there's still a very long way to go with Linux. There would appear to be two OS requirements: one for professionals in which anything goes, one for users like me, no choices, no networks, no servers, etc!
OG.

[Cuddles]

OldGeezer,

I think you hit the nail, right on the head. Knoppix, and Linux for that matter, is deffinately not Windows. If I was going to compare Linux to anything that is, or was, on the market, as far as an OS is concerned, I would liken Linux to WinNT. Because WinNT is more "user" based, and many know of it as being used for servers.

Linux is noting like Windows, even though they have made the Graphical User Interface, GUI, closely related, and visually comparable to Windows. You have permissions, user profiles, and most of the "power" of Linux is stuck in the CLI, or Command Line Interface. Even though Linux is "rock solid" as far as stability, and for security, you can't beat it, it (Linux) has a very difficult "learning curve". Linux, coming from its "father" UNIX, and Linux being its "son", they have a lot in common -=- cryptic commands. Cryptic if you come from the "world" of Windows.

Some commands of UNIX are ls, for listing files and folders, cat, for concatonating or viewing files, and cp, for coping files and folders. Compare these commands to the DOS/Windows equivalents, and you get: dir, type, and copy, at least cd is still the same in both worlds.

So, to see if we can get you going here, this is what I would do...

Process #1
(a) Get to a CLI screen - Click on the icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like a monitor with a shell in front of it.
(b) Get into, and edit your sources.list file - type: kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

Process #2
(a) Get into, and edit your sources.list file (using the GUI) - Click on the little house icon at the bottom of the screen. This will open "konqurer" [sp], Click on the "up arrow" icon till you are at the root, or "/", Click on "etc" folder, Click on "apt" folder, and then Click on the "sources.list" file to open it in kwrite

Both processes are the same from here on
(c) move your cursor down the listing, and replace every instance you find of...

...ftp2.de.debian.org...

with the following...

...ftp.de.debian.org...

NOTE: you are only removing the "2" from the above entries...

(d) Click on the icon that looks like a floppy disk, or you can click on File, and select Save, from the menu.
(e) Click on the "X" in the upper right of the screen, or you can click on File, and then select Exit, from the menu.

(f) Get the updated package listings - from a CLI (see "Process #1" above for how to get into this) - type: apt-get update
(g) Get a "simulation", as BaldYeti suggested in his post - again in a CLI - type: apt-get -u -s install [yourpackagename
(h) If it looks good, go for it "for real" - remove the "-s" from the command you used in step "G" above.

One thing you will learn, using the "apt-get" packager, is that you always do a "apt-get update" before you do anything with apt-get. Reasoning? Simple, the apt-get update updates your database files on your system of what is currently available, and all of there dependancies. You always want current data before you do any installing, or searching, its that whole "bleeding edge" kind of thing. Many of the "packages" that can be gotten, can be going through many "version" changes, and thus, doing a apt-get update, ensures that any changes in versions, are reflected in any install or searching that apt-get will be doing.

Hopefully, this helps a little,
Ms. Cuddles

[baldyeti]

Hey OG, don't despair and throw away that baby just yet! Just because there are new packages literally every day does not mean you have to frantically upgrade! I sure don't. Klaus and other live CD's maintainers are doing a wonderful job of periodically giving us a nice snapshot of the state of the art in linux, so just enjoy their creation.

Back to your original question, installing a .tar.gz package can be done under debian, of course. It just bypasses the normal procedures and apt won't have a clue about this particular SW. The .tar.gz extension indicates a "compressed tar archive", with tar being an old trusty unix archiver. It could contain either source code or binary executable. In the first case, you usually need to do "configure; make; make install", but it may fail due to unmet source libraries dependencies. This is exactly what apt handles for you, by just tapping into repositories of compiled binary packages, with automatic dependency management. The second case - and following the default thunderbird link for linux seems to provide that kind of binary - just needs to be unpacked. Generally under the top-level directory you'll find an executable, eg: thunderbird-X.Y.Z/thunderbird.

Now I know it all can seem overwhelming or downright scary at first. Let me then remind you that you can simply use mozilla mail, as I do! If your knoppix is reasonably recent and has mozilla 1.5 or better, it'll have all thunderbird has to offer, eg decent client-side spam filtering and spell checking.

[oldgeezer]

Hold it guys! I am overwhelmed at your generosity of advice. Perhaps I overstated my knowledge and abilities? I consider myself a computer expert (although I prefer messing with the HW). I was working with Autocode for Pegasus forty odd years ago, then FortranIV, then Basic. I do DOS with the proverbial eyes shut. I have two detailed books on Linux from Sybex and Marcel's. For sixty odd years, I've been able to learn fast - very fast - almost anything. I speak six languages, but Linux is an entirely different ballgame. As a former academic, I strongly disapprove of experts talking amongst themselves - their salaries are paid to disseminate knowledge amongst the masses, not enshrine it in cliquish technospeak.
The bottom line is that that there are ten-thousandfold more putative PC users than there ever will be Unix gurus. They deserve a reliable OS - no servers (gurus), no networks (gurus), few choices, and no barriers to installation, etc. Unlike certain other OSes, though, it has to be bullet-proof.
With the terrific support you two folk offer, I am likely to achieve the objective, evetually, for which I am exceedingly grateful. How many neophytes will not?! How much longer will the gurus continue to shoot themselves in the corporate feet when an amazing opportunity to simplify their offerings and thereby rule the world remains wide open?
Non-IT people have been banging away on this theme for several years now, but the message just doesn't get through! Linus T has given the world a masterpiece, Hr Dr Klaus has brilliantly tailored a CDRom version, the Debian team has created a terrific access system - why haven't the miriads of developers not understood where their own next best chance lies? I'd've thought it would've been enlightened self-interest? There's no merit in trying to sell an OS - the payoff is in job-security and consultancy!
Again, many thanks, Cd and BY; constantly amazed by the helpfullness of contributors in this Forum.
OG.