installing a tarball

I have Limewire and I want to install it but it is in a .tar archive. I read elsewhere that I have to navigate to the address of the tarball via the console, but I don't know any commands. How do I install it?

 

.tar is traditionally for Linux. It's like a .zip equivalent. You could probably try to use ExtractNow (free tool for 99% compression types) to open it up. Easier - download the windows .zip or .exe version.

 

I don't think downloading a zip or exe version will be easier if he's running on linux. Just open up the tarball and there should be a readme file in it that will give you instructions on how to install it.

 

there seem to be rpm's on limewire.com. why do you want to compile it yourself?

 

What program do I use to open an .rpm file?

I am also trying to install mad-wifi for my atheros card but I don't know how to use the console. How do I install a tarball?

 

google limewire <your distro>, or check out FrostWire.

 

To install rpm: fire up a terminal, navigate to the rpm file (if it's on your desktop, it's usually under "cd ~/Desktop"). Then change to root ("su") and install via "rpm -Uhv programname.rpm"

To install tarball: navigate to location of tarball, say

tar -xvf myarchive.tar

(or tar -zxvf myarchive.tar.gz if it's compressed)

Then go into the extracted archive (usually "cd myarchive"). Install via

./configure
make
make install

You might need to run "make install" as root. As suggested previously, it's usually better to first look at for a readme file in the archive to find detailed installation instructions, including dependencies etc.)

 

I'm running with the kernel v2.6.17.10-generic.

Everything I tried in your instructions utterly failed, I have no idea why:
user@laptop:~$ cd ~/Desktop
user@laptop:~/Desktop$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
Sorry.
user@laptop:~/Desktop$

It won't even let me run as root. I checked capslock and everything was fine. I'm a Windows power-user, and I'm completely new to Linux. Nevertheless something is telling me that I doing everything wrong. I need a miracle right now. None of the commands you suggested passed without an error such as "directory not found" or "Authentication failed" followed by an annoying apology.

 

2.6.17-10-generic, that's Ubuntu/Kubuntu I believe, so check this out:
http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-install-limewire-on-ubuntu-610-edgy-eft/
first add some repositories:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy#How_to_add_extra_repositories
if you don't have "alien" installed, you can get it from Synaptics (you can do that with the java packages too).

 

BTW, your pass is the one when you did the installation, and it's not going to show in the prompt. good luck

 

I just assumed he was running Windows! My bad.

 

If you are using one of the [XK]Ubuntu distros, please don't try to install from an RPM package! (Yes, there are programs such as Alien to do it, but don't as a beginner).

Do not install binaries packages that have not been specifically stated as being compiled for the exact version of the distro that you have installed!

For Windows, you will be used to checking that a program is okay to install and run on say Win98 or XP. The installer and exe can often run on a range of Windows versions, but there are not that many versions of Windows (although the backwards compatibility for binary com and exe is something that M$ goes to great lengths to support).

For Linux, binary programs usually have to be compiled for the exact library versions (think of the .dll hell of older versions of Windows and then some) that are installed on your computer. What this means is that a program compiled to run on Mydistro 6.00 may not run on Mydistro 7.00, because the library versions have changed. You can get away with it sometimes, but Linux developers have a nasty habit of changing the API calls between one version of a library and the next (they don't believe in backwards compatibility because the programs can "easily" be re-compiled from the source code).

Linux is a different enviroment from Windows, most programs are available as source, so backwards compatibilty of binaries or keeping the library API calls unchanged is not necessary.

BTW you don't have a root password, you're supposed to use sudo in front of any root priviledge commands (although as I am non-Ubuntu user I don't agree with Ubuntu on this one).

 

Frostwire has an ubuntu package, so that would be easiest.

http://www.frostwire.com/

make sure you have gdebi installed, as it'll resolve any dependencies.

Code:

sudo apt-get install gdebi

just download the ubuntu package from the FrostWire site, right-click the file, and select the option to open with "GDebi package manager" the GUI should be pretty self-explanatory