[Gllug] NEED HELP WITH INSTALLING A DVD FROM OCT 2002 LINUX FORMAT

[Andrew Richardson]

On Tuesday 28 Jan 2003 12:18 pm, ANTONELLA LASTA, BLOOMBERG/ LONDON OF wrote:
> Hello
> I have had recently installed Linux Red Hat vers 8.; however I need two
> things: 1. a comprehensive guide to its applications (my level is beginner)
> and 2. I am having a problem with the usage of the DVD when trying to view
> the conte nts of a DVD given with the Linux Format Magazine Oct 2002
> (Flightgear DVD); is there anyone who could send a reply or expert  on
> this?
> Many thanks
> Antonella 020-7673-2342

Hello Antonella,

I am not quite sure exactly what your question is but nevertheless here are 
some beginner tips I hope are useful.

When viewing a dvd, you are probably best to start with konqueror or nautilus 
to see the contents.  Click on the cdrom icon on the desktop and hopefully it 
will launch up with one of these file managers.  If it doesn't do that you 
might have to 'mount' the drive first but I am surprised if you need to in 
RH8.

As for the contents, you will not find and exe files but collections of files 
with extensions such as rpm, tar.gz and tgz.

The rpm's are the easiest for red hat users.  These are the 'redhat package 
management' program installation files. Similar I guess to exe files in 
Windows.  There are some graphic tools such as kpackage which you can use to 
install them but I would advise you get used to using a shell terminal such 
as konsole.

here are some commands you will find useful.

mount /mnt/cdrom                         
this mounts the cdrom drive so you can read it.

umount /mnt/cdrom
this unmounts it so you can remove the disk

cd /mnt/cdrom
changes the shell directory to the cdrom  (cd = change directory)

ls
lists the contents in the current directory

when you have cd'd to a location with rpm files to install

su root      - and enter the password

rpm -i  packagename.rpm
this installs the package (provided all dependencies are met)

rpm -Uvh  packageneame.rpm
this upgrades an already installed program with the newer version.

If all the dependencies are NOT met, you will need to do some hunting as 
installing linux applications can sometimes involve updating key library 
files first.  www.rpmfind.net is a very useful resource for this purpose.

the other files you are most likely to want to check out are tar.gz's

properly known a g-zipped tarballs, these include the source code for 
applications and need to be configured and compiled before installation.
This can be time consuming and seems fiddly at first but the basic steps are 
usually as follows.  Use a shell for this.

copy the program.tar.gz file to somewhere in your home directory.
change to that directory.

Now do..

tar -xzf  program.tar.gz
(tar extract zipped file)  
and cd to the new directory the program has just created.

Check for a readme file and read it using a text editor.  for example
gedit ./readme &

Noting that all instructions will be case sensitive, the ./ at the beginning 
is necessary and the & will let you continue at the terminal with the readme 
file still open.

Now issue the commands

./configure

wait for the prompt to return...

make

..wait for the prompt to return... and then su root

make install.

All being well this will proceed for a couple of minutes or more and you will 
be returned to a prompt with no errors.  If you get errors it means that 
either you have library files missing, other compatibility issues or the 
development tools needed for compiling software are not installed.
If you had no errors, your program has been properly installed and should run 
from a simple loew case command.

good luck !

Andrew


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