According to 1stFlight !: While burning my CPU.
>
> Hello all!
>
> I'm still confused when I get a program to install in Redhat linux and
> instead of being in rpm format its in tar format. How do I deal with a
> tar file ? Also could I have the answer in a step by step manner, I'll
> understand it better that way. Thanks!!
tar archives are realy just as esay as rpm's however, here are 2 basic rules
which i use.
1) Look into the archive first, i use "zless" to read the README and INSTALL
files first BEFORE untarring. That will tell you HOWTO go about using that
particular archive.
2) The normal rule is. (or i had beter say is here) to untar an archive in
a "clean directory" for example,
/usr/local/src/experiment
The step by step.
cd /usr/local/src
mkdir experiment
cd experiment
tar xzf /home/ftp/pub/tararchive.tar.gz
The above presumes the archive is located in /home/ftp/pub/ and is called
tararchive.tar.gz
You could have the archive in the PWD (Present Working Directory) then the
command needed would be;
tar xzf tararchive.tar.gz
ls -al
You can now see for yourself what directorys have been created.
There are of course instances when you would untar an archive in the "/"
directory, normaly that would be a tarfile containing a "binary" and
possably man pages + configuration files, by untaring it in "/" the tar
archive will install everthing in its final resting place and create the
correct permissions needed by the binary and conf files, once again read the
README and INSTALL files first with "zless".
Source tar archives, archives containing source code needed to compile a
program, should always be untarred into a directory under "usr/local/src"
or some would say /usr/src or /tmp, i prefer /usr/local/src.
>
>
> Darryl
>
--
Regards Richard.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
