Help Installing software

[ajodom10]

I am fairly new at linux, I have tried it a few times but I always get frustrated when I try to Install software. I download some software from tucows, and have a litte trouble installing it. I am using Linspire right now, and this week I will be installing mandriva. I finally got mozilla installed on linspire, but it was more troublsome than I thought it should be. This is the way I did it, I extracted the download to the root dir. and then opened up the terminal, I then followed the instructions in the readme file.... I typed CD then CD mozilla then ./mozilla. I guess that particular one wasnt that hard, but I tried following the same steps for programs such as xmms; those steps did not work for xmms. Also after I installed mozilla on my system there was no icon linked to it, therefore everytime I wanted to run the program I had to follow the same steps as the first time I installed it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am new so easy with the terms you use please.. Thanks Aaron

[darklordsatan]

...Also after I installed mozilla on my system there was no icon linked to it, therefore everytime I wanted to run the program I had to follow the same steps as the first time I installed it...

You can always use an alias to shorten things up a little bit

alias mozilla="~/mozilla/./mozilla"

And then you append that line of code to your .bashrc, .bash_profile, /etc/profile or whatever suits your needs

Then you can just type "mozilla" to open it

[aysiu]

I am fairly new at linux, I have tried it a few times but I always get frustrated when I try to Install software.

I can't vouch for other distros, but I know most have some kind of package management system (RPM, urpmi, Yum, YaST). Debian-based distros (Mepis, Ubuntu, Xandros, Damn Small Linux) use the apt-get method of installing software, which I found pretty easy to use. Here's a graphical step-by-step walkthrough of installing software in Mepis:

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/winuxinstall.php

I think you're doing it the hard way...

[timelord50]

Mandrake/Mandriva has urpmi and acompanying GUI programs. See my sig for how to install software the proper (and easy way).