Linux - Installing Program question.

[williamp0044]

When I have the source for a program I follow the rule to installing.
./configure
make
make install
I do this all as root

but things to not seem to be installing
how do I know if it is installed?
how can I access it?

I have tried to install:
wine
xine
divx
avifile
kaffe
j2re

[Zwitterion]

What distro are you using? And also read the README or INSTALL files in case it has specific installation instructions.

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

like he said read the INSTALL and/or README files. even though what you did is generally standard - it isn't always. many programs have their own different ways, for whatever reasons.

i know both divx and j2re are binary and include their own install apps.

[cloaked]

you might be missing some dependancies, if it stops during the configure script saying it cant find something, go install that package first. Or if you dont want to sort through dependacy hell, use a distro with a good packaging scheme, like gentoo or debian

[Zwitterion]

Oh yes, Gentoo is amazzzinggg about dealing with dependencies. Its awesome :)

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

Originally posted by Zwitterion
Oh yes, Gentoo is amazzzinggg about dealing with dependencies. Its awesome :)
i'll third that!

[ameoba]

OMG !!!!@# GENTO LUNIX SAVCED MY SOUL!!@@#@$ THROW AWAY YOUR CURRENT DISTRO & DON"T BOTHER LEARNING TO ANYTHING YOURSELF< YOU CAN JUST EMERGER EVEAYTHAN!@!##@

[eloj]

You forgot

"GENTO LUNIX 1S lIk3 W1CK3d F/\S7! I CAN LIKE TOTALY FEEL DA DIFFRENC3 iN sTARTING B1S0N AFTER SP3ND1NG 2H/DAYZ C0MP1L1'NG! 3VRAH PACKAG3 i EMERG!!"

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

oh thanks a lot guys. just cause i'm lazy at times you flame me? granted you can hand me a redhat rpm and i'll probably say something like i'm clueless (well, no, i'd convert it to a tarball and install it by hand), but gentoo offers a lot of power and control while still not taking too much effort for me.

we told him the best way to figure out what he needs to do, and then offered an alternative if he sometime down the road wishes to change.

and i also beg to differ, gentoo can teach you quite a bit about the internal workings of linux. back in the day when i tried linux for the first, mandrake 8.2 to be exact, i hated it. it wasn't close to what i had expected - simply a bad imitation of the windows gui. And red hat 8 felt the same way to me. i fled from both i hated them so much. i then went to slackware, and learned a bit. but there was still the dependency tree shit which really tended to get on my nerves. i tried LFS just to learn a bit more about how linux worked, and fealt comportable with it. again, LFS is even worse than slackware so i tried debian. i'm not sure if it was me or not, but i wasn't too impressed. so gentoo it was.

the way i see it, offer up a solution and then suggest what you've found to improve your experience with linux in general. for me, that's been gentoo. nothing says he/she has to immediatly convert and forget everything else, but it might spark their interest and on a free afternoon give it a try.

[cloaked]

if you already understand something, such as a dependancy tree, what are you losing by not doing all the tar -xvjfing yourself? I dont see any problems with making this long thoughtless work easier. Its a bit different than using a next-next-next gui to set up a conf file.