On previous occasions, I've asked for and received specific help
on this topic. Now I must absorb the principles involved and
thoroughly understand environment variables and permissions.
Whilst I've gained some knowledge, it's fragmented and I just
don't have a feeling for the overall picture.
I have Slink on two boxes, and have recently put Potato onto them
as well. I'm trying to install kppp-1.6.25 from a tarball to get rid of
an error message, and Qt-2.0.2 also from a tarball as kdegames'
.deb calls for it. (I have kde-1.1.2 installed from .debs produced
for either slink or potato - soon I'll go to kde2, so my efforts
here are mainly for learning).
By mistake, I used Qt-2.0.1 and after some difficulty installed it
on my spare box. Kppp-1.6.25 gave problems with headers, but
this was overcome by installing kdelibs2-dev ( which called for
qt1g-dev ). Things finally stalled at 'fails at linking' (immediately
after 'kde headers installed').
Trying Qt-2.0.2 on my main box does not get beyond the first test -
'$QTDIR is not set correctly'
I've spent days reading and 'digging around' and feel the onset
of some understanding (I'm over 70 and retired so I have the time,
but not the computer experience or savvy!). It seems I must get
some knowledge of scripting and programming to really see why
things stall - yet I doubt my ability at this stage to go into matters
deeply. What I feel is needed is a 'translation' of some of the
scripting particularly, initially, in /xx/configure - if I can breakdown
some of the tests, I ought to cope with others for there seems
a great deal of repetition. The first test in /qt/configure is:-
touch .test.qt ---no problem there,
if [ '!' -f ${QTDIR} /.test.qt. ] ; ---no real idea (and
can't find the ? back tick symbol!)
Where can I get examples and 'translations' - I'm sure students
must have sources other than their lecturers and colleagues. Can
some kind soul put me on the right road and give me a little push.
I have a great deal of reference material and a good number of
books - can't understand much of the content that's the problem!
When looking for info on /etc/profile I found mention of 'sourcing'
after adding a software's PATH - e.g. 'source /etc/profile', but
only in one place although it is referred to in the manpage for
'bash_builtins'. It's not been quoted in any postings on this lists
and I take and read all. Is this in any way relevent to compiling
software now?
I apologize for the length of this - I'm trying to give some idea
of the problems faced by people in my position. I subscribe to
other lists, but this above all produces succint responses to
almost every reasonable specific request for help - I save
many, but my problems generally appear more wide ranging
because of a lack of background knowledge in computing.
(Often I find things similar to painting a floor - usually finish in
a corner, rarely by the door and I do know the Windows
provide no answer).
If anyone could suggest a way forward so that I can solve
most of my own problems in future, I'll be very grateful.
John
