NooB question about install of Proggys, general

[Bucky Ball]

Hey guys:

I am pretty new here, but I have a question. I had an install of knoppix and windows set up and I trashed it all and did a reinstall due to worries about virii.

I am reinstalled and even have LILO working unlike before, but now I am confused by installs of programs that I download for knoppix/linux.

When I get tarballs of programs what steps _should_ I perform to untar and fully install any given program? For instance, I can't seem to get Moz. Firebird to "install" in the sense that the only way that I have to run it is to Bash to the directory that the files are in and do: ./MozillaFirebird

The thing is that I would like this instead:

I wish that I could either run that command line instance from any directory *and* I also wish that I could go into kde and run it just as I do when I click on the other internet listed apps under the K menu.

This is the type of thing that I don't know or understand.

[rickenbacherus]

Hey guys:

I am pretty new here, but I have a question. I had an install of knoppix and windows set up and I trashed it all and did a reinstall due to worries about virii.

I am reinstalled and even have LILO working unlike before, but now I am confused by installs of programs that I download for knoppix/linux.

When I get tarballs of programs what steps _should_ I perform to untar and fully install any given program?

Anything that you download will usually end with .tar.gz (the same as .tgz) or .tar.bz (the same as tbz). First you must untar and unzip the app:

tar xzvf someapp.tar.gz

That will create a new directory usually named similarly to the app you downloaded for example:

someapp

Then you just do:

cd someapp

Fire up MC (enter mc at the command line) and you can see what's inside of the archive. Usually there is a README or INSTALL that will explain how to install that particular app. Of course you do realize that this is Debian and therefor apt-get is the primary way to get new apps installed.

For instance, I can't seem to get Moz. Firebird to "install" in the sense that the only way that I have to run it is to Bash to the directory that the files are in and do: ./MozillaFirebird

You can enter the full path instead of changing into the directory. I use Mozilla 5.1 so I do this:

/usr/local/mozilla/./mozilla

The thing is that I would like this instead:

I wish that I could either run that command line instance from any directory *and* I also wish that I could go into kde and run it just as I do when I click on the other internet listed apps under the K menu.

This is the type of thing that I don't know or understand.

It's been a while since I've used KDE but you should be able to create a shortcut w/ an icon that launches the full path of your application or create a menu item.

[Bucky Ball]

Thank you. That all helps a lot. Yes, in KDE I can create a shortcut, but how do I shorcut to a command if I have to type in that command? Is there a batch file type system, perhaps, that I can write, or is there a more obvious solution?

[aay]

Thank you. That all helps a lot. Yes, in KDE I can create a shortcut, but how do I shorcut to a command if I have to type in that command? Is there a batch file type system, perhaps, that I can write, or is there a more obvious solution?

If you need to make a shortcut for a long command that you are typing into a shell, then the best thing to do is to make an alias.

Here's how you do that. You should have a file in your home directory called .bashrc Open it in a text editor. Then add a line like this:

alias command_shortcut='long_command_goes_here'

Save your .bashrc and then log out and log back in to your user account (if you are running from the cd, I suspect you'll need to save your config to a floppy). After this, all you should need to do is to type the command shortcut from the shell and your command will be run.

You can do all kinds of cool things with aliases.

If you want to make your aliases available to all users on your system, add them (as root) to /etc/skel/.bashrc

Hope this helps

Adam

[dougreed]

You can also add the directory to your $PATH global variable, and have it added to your path automagically every time you boot, by putting something similar to the following in your ~/.bashrc (I think)

PATH=$PATH:/the/path/to/the/executable/file
export PATH

I think you can also make a soft link to the executable file from a directory already in your path (echo $PATH to see where you can put this) by doing something like this:

cd /usr/bin
ln -s /the/path/to/the/executable/file

/usr/bin is (probably) in your path.

I'm typing this from school and I'm just recovering from the flu, so I am pretty error-prone; if I made any mistakes, I'm sure somebody else can correct me.

Doug