Dumb question about tar.gz files and Debian

[Cuddles]

OldGeezer,

I understand your frustration, I went through it myself, only, hmm, about six months ago, and have been (trying) to learn everyday...

I came from a background of DOS, version 1.12 to current, through Win3.x, then Win95, and finally, to a guru status of Win98. I've programmed in Cobol, Fortan, and Basic - on mainframes, and have programmed in Basic, QBasic, PDS Basic, and Visual Basic, using VB in Win3.x, Win95, and Win98. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing in the world of Linux, its all garbage, its like comparing a PC to a MAC, or apples to oranges, completely different. About the only thing that is close, is DOS and Linux's Command Line Interface - but the "CLI" has way more power.

Some of the CLI programs have a close relation to a Graphical User Interface, but many still need to be done in the Command Line Interface, its the nature of the beast.

As for "Everyone in Linux has to be Guru's", no way, I am NOT a guru in Linux, I just learn as I go, and many times, fail at the attempt. Such is life. You just go, day by day, learning something new, and hopefully, growing from it.

Don't know where we go from here? You have two issues, from your initial post: (1) your sources.list needs to be changed, so it can get packages from places that exist in the outside world - the sources.list is simply a file, that contains entries that tell where apt-get can find packages to get, install, or search, for you. The file is a simple text based file, easily editted by any text editor, like kwrite. And, lastly, (2) you wanted to install a package, which, can be done through apt-get, easily as well, as long as the sources.list is current, and is pointing to locations that your package may exist.

You need (1) to get to (2), thus number 1 needs to be changed, so that number 2 can work, thus, the outcome is that you get what you want. I might add, changing the sources.list is not that hard, and in most cases, once it is changed, may not need to be changed for quite some time.

As for helping, I am always helpful, I was "born" that way, I was not "born" with any of this knowledge, I was never born with any Windows knowledge, and I don't have a Guru "on call" to help me out.... I just learn, everyday, and Linux has been a definate learning thing...

Ms. Cuddles

[oldgeezer]

At last! There is progress. The problem was knowing which file to edit, then mc refused to load sources.list. Kwrite did it, though and now after a successful update, my daily time allocation on DUN is about to run out! Tomorrow, tomorrow! I agree with all you say, Cd, but it shouldn't be that I have to rely on others just to do simple things. I was using CP/M twenty years ago when most folks were still asking 'What's it for?'.
Whatever, you'll still be tucked up when I struggle on the morrow.
Very many thanks,
Og.

[Cuddles]

O M G

CP/M - been there, done that, on a TRS-80 Mdl III actually, with five out-board floppy drives; one single-sided 180K, a double-sided 360K, a single-sided quad, a double-sided quad, and lastly, get this, a single-sided 8" floppy - gesh. And I wrote programs using CP/M Basic, for a company that manufactured floppy disks, 8", 5 1/4", and they were just starting to make the 3 1/2" ones. The programs I was developing for them were to test for degrated material, or stress-testing the media surfaces of the disks. Small world

Can you imagine, getting Windows XP on 8" floppy media, shesh, or the old 300MB drums/platters? We sure have come a long way, since then !

Well, now I KNOW where you got the nic of "old geezer", should have made it "OldComputerGeezer" to be honest... [j/k and giggle]

Ms. Cuddles

[oldgeezer]

'Fraid not, Cd. I have never had any formal IT or even electronics tuition; it's always been the hobby side of my work as a user of these things. But I did use proprietary 10" floppies on an electron microscope on one occasion! And, yes, I remember well the introduction of core memory and drum storage around the time of the Ferranti 1902/4. Don't forget that Colussus was the very first computer and that the Brits were already producing machines for the military (Elliot Automation, ICL, Plessey, etc) whilst IBM was still playing with golfballs. Our computer industry was already failing (from the usual British disease of underinvestment) before Jobs was born. There's probably still some debris from that era in my attic along with a few 3" (yes, three) disc drives.
There will now be a short intermission whilst I switch machines and struggle onwards with apt-getting.
OG

[unamiccia]

All of the above is useful, but . . .

I'm pretty sure the original problem (install thunderbird) can be accomplished by doing the following at the command prompt:

apt-get update

(This updates the list of available packages)

apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird

(This installs thunderbird)

The "getting headers" snafus were probably some little Internet thunderstorm or another -- either a debian ftp site was down or the original poster had a buggy connection that time with his/her ISP. I would advise trying again with the two commands above before trying anything more elaborate (unless you're in it for the learning!).

[oldgeezer]

It was the second German server that caused the problem (ftp2.de). Once I edited that to their primary unit as suggested by Cd, everthing worked OK.
OG.

[Cuddles]

OldGeezer,

I believe in giving credit, where credit is due...

The fact is, I got that info in reading another topic/thread, along the same topic of apt-get, in which Stephen had done background/research, and had suggested this change in that thread.

It really pays to read a lot of topics, sometimes you can get lots of information that way. Some of it doesn't "pan out", and sometimes, it does. Stephen has helped a lot of people here, and has done lots of research behind many of the problems people are having. ( I think his success ratio is higher than any booky agent would ever want to give odds on )

But, as you will find, OldGeezer, we all work together, to get solutions, some of us grasp at straws as ideas, and others, have had "real life" issues that have been resolved, and can "speak" from experience. I am kinda in-between on these.

Glad you got your sources.list up and happy, that can only help now and in the future...
Ms. Cuddles

[oldgeezer]

That's most generous of you, Cd - far too much plagerism about these days. Stephen and aay, amongst others, have indeed been most helpful to me on previous occasions. Maybe I'll write to Tony and have him reserve honourary gongs for them........
OG.

[oldgeezer]

Hold it, guys! There's a new problem. apt-get got me Thunderbird v0.5, but my tarball and 'doze are 0.6. I still cannot find an executable generated when clicking the tar.gz file, although almost all the others seem to have been generated. Is it possible to update a) from these tar.gz generated files, b) by apt-get upgrade mozilla-thunderbird? All this could've been avoided if, like Opera, Mozilla put a Debian downloadable on their site.
OG.

[oldgeezer]

Update: The Mozilla website excludes updating Thunderbird by overwriting the previous version. So there's an extra problem - how to remove the old version without losing data and damaging all the links?!
OG.