On Tue, 23 May 2006 18:14:52 -0400 "Michael B. Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dijo:
> I am totally new to Linux. I'm trying to learn the OS now. I installed > Linux XP Desktop and have tried to install OpenOffice 2.02, but I am so used > to Windows, I don't have a clue how to install programs. I'm looking for > setup or setup.exe when obviously there is none that I know of. Can someone > help? Please! There are two basic kinds of Linux distributions: RPM-based and Debian-based. A slight majority are RPM-based, including some heavyweights like Suse and Redhat. Debian-based distros include Gentoo and Ubuntu, among several others. The major difference between these two classes lies in how to install applications. If your distro is RPM-based there is a utility to install programs that goes out to the internet, finds an .RPM file that contains the necessary installation files, and automatically installs it on your computer. If your distro is Debian-based, the utility is called Synaptic and it does the same thing, except the installation files will be in a .deb file. The .RPM or .deb files are found in sites called repositories. Your distro will have already set up its installation utility to look for the standard repositories. Note that your computer must be connected to the internet for either of these to work, but it only needs to be connected while installing an application. Today Ubuntu is the most popular distro for newbies because it is so easy to set up and is very good at auto-detecting hardware. If you have Ubuntu, or any other Debian-based distro, here is how you install OpenOffice.org: >From the panel (the strip on the top and/or bottom of your screen), click on Applications. Scroll down to System (not System Tools). Then go to Administration, and finally click on Synaptic Package Manager. (You will have to give your root password to launch Synaptic.) Once Synaptic is open just scroll down through the thousands of applications listed until you find OpenOffice.org. You will see lots of listings for OpenOffice.org. Just select the 2.0 version -- Synaptic will automatically also add any other files necessary for the default country/language settings you already set up in your distro. With it selected, right-click on it and choose Mark for Installation. Once it is marked for installation, click on Apply on the Synaptic top menu bar. That's it. Synaptic will then go out to the repository where the installation files for OpenOffice.org 2.0 are located, download them, and install them on your computer. When it is finished you should have launch listings under the Application menu on your panel. Having said all of that, Ubuntu's basic installation utility installs OpenOffice.org by default. Hence, if you have Ubuntu it should already be installed. So before following the above instructions, look in your Application menu and see if it is already there. Synaptic will also tell you if it is already installed because it will be marked as installed when you launch Synaptic. If Synaptic says it is installed, but there are no listings to launch it under Applications, then something went wrong and you need to add the launch listings. You can do that by right-clicking on "Applications" and selecting Edit Menus. You can also download the installation file from OpenOffice.org and install it manually from the command line, but that requires a little more knowledge. Try your distro's application installer first. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
