Installing ktorrent-3.2.1.tar.bz2

[donaldfarkas]

i just installed the newest version of ktorrent and i installed linux like half an hour ago can some one help me out on how to install programs with this.

[D-cat]

Source packages include basic instructions, but with most major distros, you're better off downloading binary packages (with SuSE, ".rpm" extension) and the included package manager to make sure you have working installs.

In SuSE, the package manager is found in Yast -> Software -> Manage Software.

If you need to find something not listed in YaST, try here first:
Software.openSUSE.org

If that fails you, then you can consider installing things from source.

[donaldfarkas]

well since i downloaded a .tar.bz2 i extracted it into a folder but what do i do next ?

[D-cat]

look for a file named README (or README - Install or something like that). While most are generic instructions, sometimes theres something in there like an option or dependency to be installed first.

The generic instruction is basically to open a terminal window (like Konsole), cd to the directory you extracted the source to, and type ./configure to check your system and create a configuration for compiling (if you get a permission denied error, try chmod 777 configure). If there are no fatal errors (it'll let you know, those must be dealt with first), then type make. This will compile the program. Next, if that goes smoothly, you need to become the superuser (su), so you can install the compiled binaries with make install.

Compiling from source is also a crap shoot with the menu, often you end up also manually defining a menu entry or desktop icon to launch the program from, or you can be content to run it from a terminal window.

...

With all that in mind, I still reiterate, installing from rpm / yast is a lot less problematic.

[donaldfarkas]

i figured out how to install it i used the tar -xvjf FILENAME.tar.bz2 command

[D-cat]

That's just the extraction.

[donaldfarkas]

donald@linux-gojf:~/Desktop/wine-1.0.1> ./configure
checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for gcc... gcc -m32
checking for C compiler default output file name...
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
donald@linux-gojf:~/Desktop/wine-1.0.1>
donald@linux-gojf:~/Desktop/wine-1.0.1>

.ityped configure

what does that mean?

[D-cat]

It means the compiler is not installed. You'll have to go into Yast software management anyway and install gcc in order to move forward this way.

Learning to compile software in Linux is not a bad thing, and maybe it's also not a bad idea that you're starting with a small project like ktorrent. I suspect though you are going to quickly find one by one more dependencies that'll need to be installed in order to make this work (like maybe kde-dev?). Once you get it to work, it's a satisfying feeling that you accomplished this, though you also quickly realize why the package managers have been created in the first place. I never recommend that a new user jump into compiling, especially if the package is available as an rpm, but your desire to learn how it's done is admirable.

If you are looking to learn programming, then by all means, install compilers to your heart's content. None the less, gcc is not a bad thing to have installed anyway just for that occasional program that doesn't have a binary in your distro. (e.g. I just compiled the xmms-amidi plugin) Good luck, please let me know how it goes.

[donaldfarkas]

where can i download the compiler? i actualy installed fedora 10 since last time i posted but im sure ill need a compiler for that also. i found out thats what ill be using for one of my classes instead of suse

[D-cat]

where can i download the compiler?

Yast -> Software -> Manage Software

look for gcc