how to install a package with the terminal

[Montana68]

Hello All
I am a newbie so any instructions have to be simple and complete with every step.
The problem I am having is installing Fire Fox-9.0.1.tar.bz2 not having any luck. I downloaded it from its site and have it on my desktop.
I used the following command and got the following results:

montana@montana-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install firefox-9.0.1.tar.bz2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package firefox-9.0.1.tar.bz2
montana@montana-laptop:~$

Oh yea forget to tell you that I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 and have updated it went asked to.
Thank you all for your help.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Montana

[jayd512]

The steps outlined in this page are fairly straight-forward.
Give this a shot, and post back if you get any errors.

Install / Upgrade to Firefox 9 in Ubuntu 10.04 / 10.10 | Liberian Geek

[khildin]

Hi,

The easiest way is to add the mozilla repository to you sources.list and install with apt or softwarecentre. That is what ^^ explained.

What you were trying to do is using apt (a package manager) to install a tarball (tar.gz) package. The answer is simple: you can't!
tarballs are like zipfiles. They are compressed archives with data in it. If you want to install from tarball, you need to uncompress them and then install with the famous ./ command.

Read how you install from tarball HERE: http ://ubuntuguide.net/how-to-uncompress-and-install-targztarbz2rar-packages-in-ubuntu how to uncompress and install tar.gz/tar.bz2/rar packages in Ubuntu
note: when installing applications with a tarball you don't have the advantages of a repository with updates: you have to manually update each time a newer version of the tarball comes out. So I would suggest to stick with apt / softwarecenter to manage your applications for the time being. When you get some more 'linux/ubuntu skills' you can use those tarballs, but even then, it sure is easier to use a packagemanager and repositories. (ofc sometimes there are no repositories and then you are forced to use a tarball)

regards,
Rob