On Mon, 2005-07-11 at 17:46 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:

Peter Hunter <peterslinuxbox@ntlworld.com> wrote:

...

[...] Uncompressing proberbly won't be a problem, but how do I install the file/program from there? More to the point, where can I find instructions that will tell me what to do? [...]

There should be README and INSTALL files in the directory that you unpack. Quite often, they'll tell you to run three commands:

./configure #(sometimes a perl or python command instead) make make install #(this last one as root)

and that should nearly always install the software to /usr/local which is more-or-less the system administrator's sandbox (while the directories under /usr directly are for system packages and /opt is for third-party prebuilt packages).

Hope that helps,

Yes, that's a big help. Just one thing, how do I become root without logging out and back in. Do I type su root? Peter

On 11/07/05, MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:

Peter Hunter <peterslinuxbox@ntlworld.com> wrote:

...

[...] Just one thing, how do I become root without logging out and back in. Do I type su root?

Yes, su (substitute user) will work like that, or you could become root and run the make command all in one with: su root -c 'make install'

Or install the sudo package and use that to run commands with root privs. Once installed you'll be able to things like.. ./configure make sudo make install As with all things linuxy there's a zillion ways to do everything. I'm not advocating to pooh-poohing either approach, just making you aware of the choices. Cheers, Al.

Alan Pope <alan.pope@gmail.com> wrote:

Or install the sudo package and use that to run commands with root privs. Once installed you'll be able to things like..

I'm not a big fan of letting sudo run all commands. I prefer to keep it to a few selected commands and users who aren't allowed to run all commands. If you let a user run make, it's reading Makefile in your current directory, which can call all commands. I'm not sure why I have that preference for sudo, but I do. Is it irrational? -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 20:22 +0100, Peter Onion wrote:

On Mon, 2005-07-11 at 17:31 +0100, Peter Hunter wrote:

Do you know how to use YaST to install the packages that SuSE have already included in the distribution ? In many cases there is no need to build from source unless you want the very latest version of stuff.

Peter (SuSE 9.2 User) O

Yes, I do now Peter. Thanks to Nick, Matt and others for their help and advice (with instructions. Peter

On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 22:08 +0100, Peter Onion wrote:

On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 21:53 +0100, Peter Hunter wrote:

But if you want to be "near the edge" then there are much better distros avaialable. Having said that, as others have shown you, it's not hard to upgrade things yourself or install apps/libs that SuSE don't provid

Yes, I've been thinking about this. The website I mentioned earlier is teaching me a lot and now I feel a bit restricted. Don't get me wrong, I like Yast and think it does a good job, BUT. It is too much like Windows in that it does it all for you. I don't like that because the only thing you can learn is where to click the mouse. For that reason I have been thinking of changing the distro to something else. But what? I have seen discs with Fedora core 4 (or something like that) and Mandriva, as well as Debian, and many others. I would be pleased to hear what YOUR views are (and anyone Else's for that matter). Regards Peter

As Paul says Debian may be a good choice if you want to mess with the nuts and bolts more than YaST/SuSE encourages. Actually one of the problems with SuSE is that once you start messing beyond the SuSE packages and YaST configuration you can end up with quite an unstable and unpredictable system because YaST makes a lot of assumptions (like only packages in the RPM database have been installed, and only YaST has modified configuration files) Also I would consider Ubuntu, Ubuntu is essentially Debian made easy, it has a reduced package selection (although there is nothing stopping you adding debian packages) but (in my experience) has better hardware support out of the box and offers a slightly more polished initial configuration. I was pure SuSE on the desktop from about 2001, but like you I felt that I was being insulated from the system, also I fancied a change. So I moved my main machine over to Ubuntu a few months back, One of my laptops and a machine in my office are now Ubuntu as well. Generally I am pretty happy with the changeover (the main problems I have had are AMD64 specific and therefore may not affect you)

On this matter, I'd just like to add my two cents and say this: Don't run SuSE without apt4rpm. It mimics the functionality of Debian's apt in large part, and is an absolute requisite part of a SuSE install for a lot of people, including myself. Using a single command that will download and install a program and all of its dependencies is almost infinitely preferable to the alternatives, and if you add good repositories, you get access to a much wider base of installable software. I'd recommend it very highly, and indeed do not run SuSE without it myself. If you decide to use apt4rpm and want help getting it set up, I'd be pleased to lend a hand/shell script. -- There are 10 types of people in this world -those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Peter Hunter wrote:

For that reason I have been thinking of changing the distro to something else. But what? I have seen discs with Fedora core 4 (or something like that) and Mandriva, as well as Debian, and many others. I would be pleased to hear what YOUR views are (and anyone Else's for that matter).

I had started using Linux with Slackware way back in 1998 (release 3.5 IIRC) and was very impressed. I stuck with my Slackware until kernel 2.4 was released, and since then I have moved between a number of distributions. I used Suse for a while, then Mandrake extensively both at home and at work. Feeling brave (i was under the mistaken impression it would be difficult) I tried Debian on my desktop in about 2002, and haven't looked back since. I now have three production servers running Debian Stable (which has just moved on a level to the current version "Sarge") which I find excellent from an admin point of view. The other advantage of running Debian is the huge user base, and great tech support that can be had from them - I am sure many ALUG-ers run debian or one of the numerous debian-based distros such as Ubuntu, Progeny, Mepis, Xandros etc. Following my success with debian, I decided that my test servers and my desktop machines could teach me a thing or two if I went to a more source-based distribution, which I hoped would give me the grounding I needed to run some more bleeding edge programs so I am now running Gentoo on both test servers (in stable only configuration) and my desktop (in a hybrid stable and testing configuration). By the largest margin, I find the documentation with Gentoo to be the best software documentation from the 'get it to work' point of view, and if you can get your system running how you want with the ebuilds (gentoo's pseudo-package system) and you don't mind waiting for everything to compile in the first place, the software is tuned to run very closely with your hardware which has left me with none of the dependency hell problems I had experienced with Mandrake and I can run with the latest geek-toys available by compiling from CVS when I feel brave enough.

On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 04:22:24PM +0100, Peter Hunter wrote:

I must admit I have been looking at Slackware. I have a DVD with Slackware 10.1 on it and I've read the write up. It sounds good., I've also got Gentoo 2005.0, so it would be easy to try either of those. I have heard (seen) many members of ALUG talking about Debian and thought that must be the way to go. If all the skilled users are running it then it should be ok. What I don't want (just yet anyway) is a completely 'bare Bone's do everything yourself, distro. I'm not quite upto that yet. But something like Ubuntu or Slackware sounds good.

I run Slackware, I started with RedHat, ran Mandrake for a while and then Suse. I've been with Slackware since 9.1 (or was it 8.1?). I like Slackware because I grew up using Unix (Solaris) and my desktop machine at work is a Sun Solaris box. Slackware is one of the most 'unix alike' Linux distributions and, while it's pretty easy to install and set up, has very little in the way of GUIs to impede you. I found Suse in particular very frustrating in the way it hid everything. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

Hi Martin On Wednesday 13 July 2005 23:19, Martin Smithurst wrote:

I have been a Windows developer for some time

The Penquistas will be popping round sometime during the night ;D

I have just recently installed Debian on a P II 266MHz PC at work that was very nearly sent to the skip. Early days but I am very happy with it so far especially the package management.

The team are unhappy with the current Version Control software - TeamSource bundled with Borland C++ Builder (they had nothing before I arrived!). So I am hoping to trial Subversion and have another go at OSS advocacy ;-) This is possibly a little ambitious on the doddery PC I am using but beggars can't be choosers.

To be honest, as long as you are not working with a massive repository, and the venerable PII is just acting as a server, I don't think you will hit any serious speed issues - Young Jen would be able to fill you in with all the gory details of svn and M$ users <duck mode=ON>. Regards, Paul. -- From the Klingon book of C: Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

Hi Stan I don't lay claim to it as an original work... Perloined from a list I found on the web. Other entries include: Specifications are for the weak and timid! You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand! Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull! What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment on his code! Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! I'm sure there are others out there... Regards, Paul. On Thursday 14 July 2005 16:46, Stan Fraser wrote:

Funniest sig I've read for a while

-- From the Klingon book of C: Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

Following up from my previous posting, it might be worth mentioning that there is a Subversion port of TortoiseCVS. http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ If this is anything like as good as the original CVS version and you have Win32 clients to consider then it may well be worth evaluating.

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 15:35:32 +0100 Tim Green <timothy.j.green@gmail.com> wrote:

On 7/14/05, Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist@digimatic.plus.com> wrote:

...

Following up from my previous posting, it might be worth mentioning that there is a Subversion port of TortoiseCVS.

http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

If this is anything like as good as the original CVS version and you have Win32 clients to consider then it may well be worth evaluating.

I have never (yet!) used the CVS version, but I can heartily recommend Subversion and TortoiseSVN.

Tim.

Good cause I am testing it with departmental sectaries next month. I am a moderately experienced user of CVS, and I think I will like subversion better from my little work I have done so far but if you want the safest option with the most tools use CVS, but I think subversion's more user friendly Regards Owen S

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 05:44:05PM +0100, mikeb@gbdirect.co.uk wrote:

On Mon, Jul 11, 2005 at 05:31:58PM +0100, Peter Hunter wrote:

...

Hi, me again,

I have been looking around the Linux.org site, and noticed that nearly all of there downloads are in the .gz format (I asume this is compressed a bit like .zip). Uncompressing proberbly won't be a problem, but how do I install the file/program from there? More to the point, where can I find instructions that will tell me what to do? (Bearing in mind of course that I am running Suse, which seems to be a bit different from other flavours of Linux).

Regards,

peter

With SuSE you have two choices 1 - preferred - use pre-built versions of the software you want (.rpm format) and install them using YaST

2 - not preferred (by many) - obtain the source code of the software and build it yourself. That's what you get with .gz or .tgz files. If you are lucky this may be a painless process but if not, you will need a good amount of technical skill to fix any problems you may get.

.tgz files can be Slackware packages which are packaged for automatic installation by Slackware's package system. They won't (in that case) include the source for building yourself. .tgz is to Slackware what .rpm is to Red Hat (and other distributions). -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

On Fri, Jul 15, 2005 at 11:49:09AM +0100, Peter Onion wrote:

On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 11:14 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

...

.tgz files can be Slackware packages which are packaged for automatic installation by Slackware's package system. They won't (in that case) include the source for building yourself.

.tgz is to Slackware what .rpm is to Red Hat (and other distributions).

That seems a very stoopid way to do things... I've always considered .tgz to be a short hand for .tar.gz i.e. a tar-ball compressed with gzip... Nothing more.. Nothing less.

I've never come across one that was specific to slackware though.

They do tend to be found on specifically Slackware libraries of course. However Slackware has been around for a *long* time and so has its use of .tgz files for Slackware package files. A Slackware .tgx *is* a tar'ed and gzipped file, it's just that it's packaged in a specific way and has installation configuration in with the actual program files. -- Chris Green (chris@areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

uOn Fri, 2005-07-15 at 12:26 +0100, Brett Parker wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

.tgz is the standard SlackWare packages format, it's been that way for years, you wouldn't have encountered it unless you'd used slackware,

I have a number of very old slackware distros on the shelf at home. I stopped using it because there was a time when it fell behind with installation and management tools.

there *are* some .tgz files that are 'slackware specific', it's just that they are few and far between. And they're normally fairly well labelled as SlackWare packages.

It's not stoopid, the slackware packages *are* just binaries in a .tgz file, with a couple of scripts in there for setting stuff up nicely. It's no worse an idea than .rpm.

Ok, "stooppid" wassn't what I ment. It seems "Unhelpful" to use a non-unique extension in that way. Atleast ".rpm" tells you whats in there, which is afterall the purpose of the extension. Peter

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Brett Parker <iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk> wrote:

Peter Onion <ponion@alien.bt.co.uk> wrote:

...

Ok, "stooppid" wassn't what I ment. It seems "Unhelpful" to use a non-unique extension in that way. Atleast ".rpm" tells you whats in there, which is afterall the purpose of the extension.

As a general rule of thumb, most people do not use .tgz to mean .tar.gz, and so I don't think it's particularly unhelpful. Most source distributions these days come with 3 different extensions...

.tar.gz - good ol' gzip'd tar archive .tar.bz2 - more recent player in the field, generally better compression than gzip, uses bzip2 to compress the tar archive. .zip - for the windows people that know no better!

I don't think that I've seen a .tgz file as a .tgz file for some time, but then I tend to use .deb files... and even then they're generally hidden behind apt! (Except the packages that I build, which then get moved in to the webtree, and are then apt-able too :)

OK - Erm, I should have qualified this further... I've not seen a *distributed* source tar ball as a .tgz file rather than a .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 file in quite some time... (bloody pedantic bunch on #alug at the moment... *winks* at quinophex and Paperface). It was pointed out to me that pbuilder uses a .tgz file, but as pbuilder's .tgz file is actually basically a chroot, it's a binary package, so I don't think that really counts here... oh, and of course, that's not distributed, so also probably doesn't count. Thanks, - -- Brett Parker web: http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ email: iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFC17GsEh8oWxevnjQRAsY3AJsFfprp6uIl5Fi2zexsmeScIqCThACeOcNy BBsOgQ2OJHbTsqtDoEvlr1U= =4iHi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----