installing programs on linux?

[boredguyatcomp]

can anyone tell me how to install programs on linux such as red hat linux (mandriva).

 

[UMCPWintermute]

First download the source tarball, then:

tar xvfz source.tar.gz
cd source
./configure && make && sudo make install

Those generally install any piece of software, though you'll want to look for INSTALL or README files to get more information.

 

[XOR != OR]

Those generally install any piece of software, though you'll want to look for INSTALL or README files to get more information.

This is a redhat distro, and he's new to linux.

boredguyatcomp, use whatever package manager is a part of that system. yum is almost the default for RH systems now, so you might want to try typing that in at the command line and see what it gets you.

Compiling programs is an ok way of doing it, but if you can install the rpm you should do that instead. That way, the package manager knows whats in the system and can take that into account when resolving dependancies