Re: Can't install ANYTHING on Linux . . . HELP!

From: Jon (gbbbod_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/27/03 

Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 08:18:42 -0700

houghi wrote:

> Jon wrote:
>> OK, if I wanted to be humbled... after working for several years as a
>> senior technical support specialist for Microsoft OS, I thought I knew
>> computers inside and out. Now I've decided to play with Linux... how
>> hard can it be, right. I feel like I've never touched a computer
>> before in my life. Either this speaks poorly for me or tells you the
>> quality of the people doing MS support ;) Regardless, so far I like
>> what I see, except I can't seem to install anything. I tried to
>> update Kopete, now when I run the program it closes after I try to
>> logon, same with GAIM. I got Realplayer working, but I can't get the
>> java vm to work, which of course means I can't see web pages running
>> java applets.
>
> What version of SuSE are you using? Just reinstall the software with
> yast. It should work then if it worked previously.
>
> When a program does not start when you klick on an icon, or via the
> menu, lauch it from a terminal. It will give you more information about
> what is going on. Some programs also give extra detail with -v (or -vv
> or -vvv) after it.
>
> You do not tell what you did exactly to update Kopete. First try working
> iwth yast. If that does not work, find a rpm file, download it and run
> 'rpm -Uvh prgram.rpm' as root. That should normaly work.
>
>> So here's what I have. I downloaded the latest copy of from Sun, ran
>> it, everything seemed to be going ok, but no web pages ( I used sun's
>> autoinstall package). I check out a few help files, which tell me to
>> copy the directory to my usr/local directory, and then edit my path to
>> point to the new directory. I do all that, and still no Java.
>
> Sorry, not able to help as I never had a problem with it. I use galeon
> as browser.
>
>> I'm lost confused, and crying in the corner.
>
> The things Linux and M$ do are completely different. Linux gives you
> much more things to play with and also a lot more programs to work with.
> When you begin with Linux, I guess the best advise I can give is to work
> with what you have and do upgrades only when they are really needed,
> because of security issues (Yast can do that for you) or if there are
> things in a newser version you can not live without.
>>
>> I can't believe it's really this hard installing things on a linux
>> box, but I'm having a devil of a time doing it.
>
> There is not just one way to install things, there are several ways to
> do it.
> 1. With yast. The easiest way, although you might not get the latest
> version
> 2. with rpm. Also easy. Find the rpm somewhere online and either
> download it, or just link directly to it, depending on you
> internetconnectiom. I have ADSL and do an istall like this:
> rpm -Uvh http://www.example.com/dir/subdir/file.rpm
> That will install it nicely.
> 3. compile it yourself. Sounds scary, but it is not.
> Download the file and read the README or INSTALL or both. Most of the
> time it is:
> tar -zxvf file.01.tar.gz
> cd file.01
> ./configure
> make
> su
> make install
>
>> PS - Can't get my NVIDA drivers to install either, so I'd only using
>> the software renderer for OpenGL. Any suggestions about what I'm
>> doing wrong?
>
> Have you tried to do the onlineupdate with Yast? There you can get the
> NVIDA driver.
> Thanks for everything. In answer to your question, I'm running 8.2. I've
tried doing the installation both in YAST and in in terminal. I'm sure
there's something very simple I'm missing, but it is a lot different than
windows. I walk my way blindfolded through the registy, and do a lot of
stuff in DOS without thinking about it, learning linux is like learning a
new language, but I'm having fun, so that is what counts, right.

Guess I'll get a book ;) When all else fails, read the instructions.

Jon