Heeelp this Linux noob with tar files:(

[Bazoukas]

People I realy want to get away from Windows.
I installed Red Hat few days ago (I had Mandrake before) and I am simply amazed.
 This is though I have trouble with the Tar file.

I type tar xvzf "filename"
then when i type ./configure its a no go


what I am doing wrong.
By the way i was trying to install a linux version of napster.

Help pls?

[voidmain]

First of all I will assume that the source code you are trying to unarchive and compile has a configure script.  Normally in an archived and compressed file (*.tar.gz, *.tgz) there will be a recursed subdirectory included. Let's say you have an archive called "samba.tar.gz" and you extract it by doing a "tar -xvzf samba.tar.gz" it will likely create a subdirectory called "samba" where it will put all of the source.  In order for the "./configure" command to work you have to actually change into the directory where the "configure" script resides (that's what the "./" part of the command means. Run said program which resides in current directory).  So after unarchiving you would have to "cd samba" and then "./configure".  

Another way you can check is to do a "tar -tvzf samba.tar.gz | grep configure" which will just list the files in the archive containing the name "configure" but not actually extract them.  You will likely see one or more subdirectory names prepended to the configure script.  You'll need to change directory into the directory containing the configure script after extracting.  Hopefully I didn't confuse you.

[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Almy]

Gotta ask...tried to wait!

 As a linux idiot, I know nothing at all. But this question gets close to some thing I'm looking for info on. Any suggestions on a good place to learn the basics of linux? By that I mean the file work in shells. I did a little lpc coding a few years back, but purely for fun.

 Anything I did had plenty of help within...I haven't been so fortunate with linux as yet. Basically I would like to find some good literature on-line or off-line that I can dig into. Keep in mind...I barely no what 'cd ..' does!

 Almy

[dbl221]

Buy the bool "Running Linux" by O'Reilly

nuff said

[eXor]

silly question probably but, did you do tar xvzf or tar -xvzf? tar xfzv won't work.

I thought Redhat just used RPMs and didn't bother with tarballs.  I use Slackware myself as IMHO it provides the best flexibility/control and haven't tried the other distros.  Just curious.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by eXor:
silly question probably but, did you do tar xvzf or tar -xvzf? tar xfzv won't work.

I thought Redhat just used RPMs and didn't bother with tarballs.  I use Slackware myself as IMHO it provides the best flexibility/control and haven't tried the other distros.  Just curious.

Huh?  When did slackware stop using GNU tar? With GNU tar the dash (-) is optional (it's not optional on all *NIX though, but it is with GNU tar which is what RedHat has used since the beginning).

And there isn't an RPM for everything, and if you want to keep up with the latest releases there may not be an RPM, depends on the developer or if anyone is ambitious enough to create an RPM.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by Almy:
Gotta ask...tried to wait!

 As a linux idiot, I know nothing at all. But this question gets close to some thing I'm looking for info on. Any suggestions on a good place to learn the basics of linux? By that I mean the file work in shells. I did a little lpc coding a few years back, but purely for fun.

 Anything I did had plenty of help within...I haven't been so fortunate with linux as yet. Basically I would like to find some good literature on-line or off-line that I can dig into. Keep in mind...I barely no what 'cd ..' does!

 Almy

I tell you what I believe is the best way to learn Linux commands and how to script them is to learn shell programming (very easy to learn and very powerful).  Shell programming tutorials will be of GREAT help if you want to learn the Linux/UNIX command line.  You can do anything on the command line that can be done on a shell script. A shell script just allows you to tie builtin shell commands and external system commands into a script that can be easily automated. Shell scripts are much like *.BAT (COMMAND.COM shell script) and *.CMD (CMD.EXE shell scripts) files in DOS/CMD if you are familiar with MS.  The difference being shell scripts are 4096 times more powerful then MS scripts and easier because of it.

The "bash" shell (Bourne Again Shell) is the most prominent in Linux, however I also like "ksh" (Korn Shell).  Korn Shell has an advantage of built in math which makes looping and counting easier in your script.  You can install the PD-KSH (Public Domain Korn Shell) which usually comes with most Linux distros but may not be installed by default.  "ksh" is the "default" shell on a lot of commercial UNIX systems (the commercial version of ksh).

There are a lot of good tutorial sites on line.  I would suggest going to www.google.com and searching for "bash shell programming tutorial".

I just did a quick search and found a page that looks like it has all the basics.  I have not read through any of it for quality but most of the stuff you should learn is on the index on this page:

http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/index.htm

And here looks like a really good link:

http://www.1001tutorials.com/bash/index.shtml

And this one:

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue52/okopnik2.html

And here's the O'Reilly book on "bash":

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash2/reviews.html

99% of the time you can't go wrong with O'Reilly books for *NIX.  They are by far the best.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[eXor]

VoidMain is quite right about the "-" being optional in "tar -xvzf".  My apologies.
 
I've never tried using switches without the leading "-" till today and didn't know they were optional. We learn something new every day  

[dbl221]

KSH is by far the best shell......as far as tutorials I have found that having to write lots of code is the best way to learn shell programming.

The best shell programming book of all time is...........

"Hands-On KornShell93 Programming" by Barry Rosenberg.

I have a LOT of shell books and this one is A+ even if you are not using KSH it rocks.

????????I tried to built KSH93 from David Korns source code available at http://www.kornshell.com/.

Man this was not fun.....it doesn't use the traditional ./configure make, make install method.........it doesn't use normal make files.....if anyone gets this one built please post the results here.

[voidmain]

Will that Korn shell do floating point math?  The PD-KSH does not, but some commercial Korn shells do.  I had to rewrite a Big Brother module in Perl for Linux because it was originally done in commercial Korn shell that was capable of floating point (not that a port to Perl is ever a bad thing).

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Bazoukas]

Hi there Voidman.
 Thank you for all of your help. I just saw your reply.

  Here is what I got so far.

AGsAGsatellite0520/AGsatellite-static
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>/German.txt
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>/license.text
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>/readme.txt

 The directory was created in :file:/home/userA"
I did the cd AGSatellite0520 and everything went well.

when i tried the ./configure command though  i got a "no such file or directory"
 I tried "AGSatellite0520./configure" and I got
AGSatellite0520 command not found

I tried the make  and make install commands just to try my luck but nothing.

  I opened the read me text of the AGS program and  it basically talks on how to create an account and how to create shared folders and so on. Nothing about installing that might be helpfull.


thank you mucho.

[dbl221]

Hey VoidMain........Ok floating point math in ksh93..........checking............yep it does it......ksh93 is the same as ksh on commercial Unix.......well they could be ksh88 or whatever.

code sample from "Hands-On KornShell93 Programming"

#Declare variables
float x=5.8
float x=3.7
float z

((z = x + y))
print "$x plus $y is $z

((z = x * y))
print "$x times $y is $z"

#you get the idea.

ksh93 is very good........please let me know if you can figure out the odd way of builting ksh93 from http://www.kornshell.com/

I was unable to make it work since it does things its own way.
 

[voidmain]

Outstanding! downloading now and will let you know.

[voidmain]

dbl221, why go to the trouble of compiling? They have binary packages available. Here's the Linux i386 version:

http://www.research.att.com/~gsf/download/tgz/ast-ksh.2001-10-31.linux.i386.tgz

Took all of 10 seconds to download and test and it does floating point just the way I like it!     Thanks buddy!

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by bazoukas:
Hi there Voidman.
when i tried the ./configure command though  i got a "no such file or directory"
 I tried "AGSatellite0520./configure" and I got
AGSatellite0520 command not found

I tried the make  and make install commands just to try my luck but nothing.

  I opened the read me text of the AGS program and  it basically talks on how to create an account and how to create shared folders and so on. Nothing about installing that might be helpfull.


thank you mucho.

Are you sure you have the source and not a binary package all ready to run?  Could you point me to the place you downloaded it and what the file name is and I will examine it and try and give you instructions (if I am successful with it)?

Thanks,
Todd