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Sat, 2 Feb 2002 10:02:53 -0500: In attempt to throw the authorities off his
trail, "Hanan Z. AL-Shargi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> transmitted:
[snip]
> - file.rpm will be installed by the rpm - <option> command
On the road to guruhood, stop and read the man(info) pages. Seriously, you
will learn more about rpm by typing:
$ man rpm | less
or
$ info rpm
(the $ sign represents your prompt in a terminal or shell -- we use $
to denote a normal user and # to denote root; the | is the unix "pipe"
symbol and it means "redirect the output of the man program to the
input of the less pager program), than you will by firing off an
e-mail. What's better, you will be able to make more sense of the help
offered to you. The beauty of unix systems is that most of the
information you need is already on your computer.
Now when you type man or info, you'll see a lot of stuff--it's very
terse. Don't worry about trying to understand all of it at once. Just
skim through it looking for the information you need. Here's an
excerpt from the rpm man page:
INSTALLING, UPGRADING, AND REMOVING PACKAGES:
rpm {-i|--install} [install-options] PACKAGE_FILE ...
rpm {-U|--upgrade} [install-options] PACKAGE_FILE ...
rpm {-F|--freshen} [install-options] PACKAGE_FILE ...
rpm {-e|--erase} [--allmatches] [--nodeps] [--noscripts]
[--notriggers] [--repackage] [--test] PACKAGE_NAME ...
Look at that a few times. You'll begin to see that it's telling you
exactly how to use rpm to install, upgrade, freshen, and erase
programs. Oh, if that hasn't answered your question. Always use the
rpm command to install packages that end with ".rpm".
> - file.bin with " bla bla command"
Well, ".bin" denotes binary. It means that the program you are trying
to install is itself contained in an installer program. This is the
equivalent of an ".exe" extension in the Windows world. So if you get
this file: "hot_new_program-V4.0.bin" from the internet, the command
to install it is going to be:
# ./hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
or StarOffice 6.0 Beta is installed by typing
$ ./so-6_0-beta-bin-linux-en.bin*
or, if you want it installed system-wide (wise on a single-user machine):
# ./so-6_0-beta-bin-linux-en.bin*
> - when to use the "./" , when do u need to chmod the file before u install
> ...etc
Remember, ".bin" files are PROGRAMS. In unix, a program must be
executable in order to run, i.e. it's permissions must be set to
executable. When you download hot_new_program-V4.0.bin and copy it to
whatever directory you're going to install from, check its permissions
first:
# cd /home/downloads/
# ls -l
- -rw-r--r-- 1 rufmetal root 1474560 Jan 20 19:06 driver-1.bin
- -rwxr-xr-x 1 rufmetal root 1474560 Jul 29 2001 rescue.bin*
- -rwxr-xr-x 1 rufmetal root 1474560 Jul 29 2001 root.bin*
- -rw-r--r-- 1 rufmetal root 124582824 Oct 3
12:00hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
Uh-oh. There are no "x's" in the permissions listing for
hot_new_program-V4.0.bin. What's more, our bash shell is kind enough
to put an asterisk "*" on the end of any file that's executable, when
using the ls command. Since the file has no execute permissions, we
need to change its modes.
# chmod u+x hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
(do man chmod | less to see what I'm talking about).
Now in unix, as in DOS, an executible must be in one of the
directories listed in your PATH variable in order for it to be
executed at the command line. If it's not in your PATH, i.e. the shell
doesn't know to look in the current directory for executable files,
you either need to add the directory (not always a good idea), or make
an absolute reference to the file.
So you could type:
# /home/downloads/hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
Which would execute HotProgram4's installer. That's called "absolute
referencing" because you tell bash the absolute (complete) path to the
file. An easier way is to use "./" which means "look for the file in
the current directory".
# /home/downloads/hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
and
# ./hot_new_program-V4.0.bin
are really the same command, but one is easier to type.
Finally, a lot of programs are still packaged as "tarballs". That is,
they are compressed tar archives with installer scripts. To install
hot_new_program-V4.0.tar.gz:
# gunzip hot_new_program-V4.0.tar.gz
# tar -xvf hot_new_program-V4.0.tar
# cd hot_new_program-V4.0
# cat README | less
# cat INSTALL | less
# cat ANY_OTHER_RELEVANT_DOCS | less
# ./install.sh
Notice, I'm recommending you read at least the INSTALL and README
files that come with most tarballs!
Have a look at the man pages for gunzip and tar to get an idea of what
these incredibly useful commands can do.
Hope this helps
~ Chris
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