Re: Downloading/Installing programs

[Rodrigo Moya]

Michael A Lane wrote:  New to Linux, use to Windows.  I've purchased several books and each of them have strong points in using Linux, but each one of them are weak in explaining step by step downloading, installing the software so that it can be launched from the desk top.  I look for programs which have the "rpm" in the command line as well as "tz", "gz".  I download them into my home directory, which is probably not a good idea, then I use the "tar xzvf {program name}.  It opens and creates a new file, but that is as far as I know. I know there is a lot more to it but need help or better yet instructions on how to proceed.   I suggest you to use RPM-format files, since they install the software, configure it, so that it's ready to run (with a few exceptions where you have to manually configure things). For installing these files: rpm -i {program-name}.rpm  -> to install, or rpm -Uvh {program-name}.rpm   -> to upgrade Tarballs (*.tgz or *.tar.gz) usually contain source code, so apart from unpacking the file, you must compile the software. For this, it's usually like this: tar xvzf {program-name}.tar.gz cd {program-name} ./configure make make install Cheers