Extracting Gzip Tar File

[Dark Knight]

Hi. I am using MDK 9.1 and have downloaded a Gzipped Tar of gimp-print***.tar.gz and want to unpack and install this file, in text mode. Could someone please give me the the complete rundown on how to do this?
I am an RPM man but want to learn more about binary and source. Is a Gzipped Tar a tarball?

[lakerdonald]

yes, that would be a tarball. How you would proceed to extract it would be:

gzip -d tarball.tar.gz
tar xvf tarball.tar

-lakerdonald

[Dark Knight]

Thank you for your advice. It has been recorded. I have done gzip -d tarball.tar.gz then tar xvf tarball.tar. It seems to have worked fine, in unpacking the file, but when I try configure or make, it will not comply. I have read the README and it tells me to type configure but when I do it gives me an error. I am sure that something is not fully installed. Please advice me as to my next steps, as this would be the first time I would successfully install a tarball, and not resort to an RPM.

[stathisx]

post any error messages that you get when use ./configure and make && make install ..

[kyku]

yes, that would be a tarball. How you would proceed to extract it would be:

gzip -d tarball.tar.gz
tar xvf tarball.tar

-lakerdonald

You can unpack with a single command, that is:

tar xvzf tarball.tar.gz

or if the file has .bz2 extensions this becomes:

tar xvjf tarball.tar.bz2

[stathisx]

about bunzip files you can use also :bunzip2 <filename.bz2>

[Dark Knight]

The error on trying to run ./configure is below. I am guessing that my system is missing some software. Thank you for your help. What is flex or lex? Everything looks fine for the first twenty lines or so after running ./configure in the gimp-print directory. I can't give complete installation notes as I do not have a terminal that allows me to copy and paste to a web browser.

./configure: line 2196: flex: command not found
checking for flex... lex
checking for yywrap in -ll... no
checking lex output file root... ./configure: line 2284: lex: command not found
configure: error: cannot find output from lex; giving up

[jeremy1701]

Looks like you need to install the Flex package.

http://www.linux.com/guides/html/chapter06/flex.shtml

Jeremy

[xinelo]

This might not be fully relevant to the original topic, or it might be.

Kiku said:

You can unpack with a single command, that is:

Code: tar xvzf tarball.tar.gz

Simple question: I'd just like to know whether there is any difference between writing "tar xvzf file.tar.gz" and writing "tar -xvzf file.tar.gz" and, if there is, what does the - do?

Thanks everyone.
xinelo

[jeremy1701]

There is no difference. Traditionally, Linux commands required a dash (-) for options. There are a few exptions, most notably tar and ps. tar works with or without the dash, but ps won't.

Jeremy