> I'm new to the Linux world and I've been trying to get used to it. I > like the capabilities that it offers. I bought Mandrake 8.2, because I > didn't know anything and it said it was easy to install. Which is was. My
Vaughn, welcome to Linux, and the list! > question is... How do I install software onto my computer? I've tried > downloading BTERM, because I need a good telnet session for my work. Once it > was been downloaded, I found it on my Desktop (file system), not ( Desktop Most Linux software is either distributed in RPM or tar.gz type files. If you're familiar with downloading software in a Windows environment, these are somewhat like ZIP files but they contain more information. As with ZIP files, they need to be unpackaged before installation. Depending on where you wnet, you may haev a file 'bterm ... rpm' or 'bterm ... tar.gz' (the dots represent intervening characters, version information and such - in general, filenames used for linux packages indicate the version, what kind of machine it's for, whether it's source, and so on. For instance, WhizBang Eidt might be called 'wed-1.0.0.tar.gz' or 'wed-1.0.0.i386.rpm'. Mandrake does include 'telnet' which does do a telnet session, but does your work prefer SSH? It should - in which case you can just install OpenSSH, then you just 'ssh' to create a session. You really don't need a terminal emulator like you do on Windows. > ), but I couldn't get it to do anything. Probally because lack of > understanding, but it's frustrating. You should find a file in Desktop starting with bterm. My guess is that it's a tar.gz file, and you'll have to uncompress it, and then install it. It may contain source code, in which you'll have to compile it, and then install it. > Is there software (drivers) for DVD's. The computer I am currently using has > this and I would like to use it if possible. For most people, xine works well. There's been quite a bit of list activity recently concerning xine. I don' have a DVD player on my computer, but it works well for playing DivX encoded CD's - I have a few of those. Their web site is http://xine.sourceforge.net. Sourceforge.net is a huge repository of open source and linux coding projects. > One last question. Mandrake included a lot of Installation sources and > commercial software. How do I know what to install ( not knowing the naming > convention that is given to all the RPM's ) and once it is installed, how do You might be more comfortable installing by using the software manager, which lest you browse through packages by types. That way you don't need to know just how the filename you're lookign for is spelled. If anything, linux filenames / RPMs can be somewhat unindicative of their function, and one generally gets this familiarity by simple exposure. > I find it? I installed what was said to be Common C++, but I can't find it. > Please help. What you probably installed was 'g++-common-soemthing.i586.rpm' which is one of the necessary RPMS for the GNU C++ compiler. You'll need to install the rest of the RPMS for gcc/g++ - best way to do that is to use the package manager. The files are on your installation CD, in the RPMS directory. there are a bunch of files that start with 'gcc3.0' or 'gcc2.96' - that's the gnu C compiler files. One final word of advice - don't double post in text and html :).
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