[daniel5455]

I have a mandrake 8.2 Linux box. I am trying to figure out how to install this Make file cause i dont have the command make. I un tar it and im stuck on what im supposed to do next to install this file. Can ne1 help me on this.

[bpark]

dan,

You need Make to compile your Make package. Yes its weird but that's the way it works. So with this being said, you won't be able to compile your Make-3.80.tar.gz. However, since you are using Mandrake I suggest finding RPMs for Make to take care of this problem.

If you are still interested in compiling raw source, this site has to with debian linux but this thoroughly explains the nature of compiling software.
http://www.aboutdebian.com/compile.htm

Anytime you get the source code to any packages, these are the steps you need to take. I'd really read the readme.txt after you untar the package but this is standard procedure.

./configure
make
make install
make clean

HTH,

bp

[elijah08]

ok...this is gonna sound really dumb...but when everyone says "you need to enter this command or that command...", where do they mean? i mean, where do i enter commands? in xterm??? i'm confused.

[Dolda2000]

If you are supposed to enter a command, and nothing is explicitly specified, you assume that it's meant to be on the shell.
xterm is really just a terminal emulator, which means that it takes the keystrokes that you type from X (if you don't what X is, it is the program that provides the foundation of the GUI, i.e. what puts your video card into graphic mode and does window based drawing on it) and processes it for terminal (byte-stream) based programs, such as the shell. Although the shell is the default program that xterm starts on its virtual terminal, it doesn't put xterm equal to the shell. I often start a telnet directly under xterm, for example. Also, the shell can, of course, be run from other terminals, too, such as other terminal emulators or the text-based terminals that really are linux's native user interface.

[Dolda2000]

Oops... I realize that I made some typos that made my post sound much harsher than I meant to. I meant no hard feelings.