Re: Downloading & installing

[Alex <radsky ncia net>]

Thanks, Jamie,

I wasn't sure, at first, what you meant by 'tarball' but it sank in, eventually.
(I just gotta learn Linux speak)

eggie sunlink net wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Alex wrote:
>
> It seems that directories are somehow involved in the whole download
> process, from the command line directory to start the download to ending
> up with a program that is ready to run, and nothing I've seen so far
> clearly addresses the role of directories in each step of the process.
>
> 1.   When preparing to perform a ftp download, what should  directory in
> the command line be?
>
>             [root localhost /directory]#  ftp
> ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/sound/players/tracker-4.3-linux.tar.gz.

        The directory you ftp from doesn't really matter.  I always ftp
from my home directory, though, just to be consistent, then move/delete
the tarballs after untarring and installing.
 

> (I'm not even sure if I have this right ----- ftp  ftp://sunsite.....)

        Nope. It's now metalab.unc.edu .

> 2.  I know that the next step is to unzip but, again, what should
> directory be in the command line?
>
>             [root localhost /directory]#  gzip -d
> sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/sound/players/tracker-4.3-linux.tar

        gzip -d tracker-4.3-linux.tar.gz , or whatever the filename is,
from the same directory the file is in.

> 3.  What should directory be for the tar process?
>
>             [root localhost /directory]#  tar....................

        Again, you should be in the same directory as the tarball.
Although, I imagine that if you're in another directory, it would work
fine as long as you specify an absolute or relative pathname to the
tarball.

        Actually, you can combine the two previous steps into

        tar zxvf tracker-4.3-linux.tar.gz , again, run from the same
directory that the tarball is in.

I presume this is after you set the command line directory to that
in the original tarball.  Otherwise, you'd use the entire 'tarball'?

 
> 4.  How is the final destination of the download determined.....that is,
> where it resides as a ready to run program?

        Well, after you untar a file, its contents will most likely end up
in a subdirectory of your current directory.  Ie.,
/home/alex/tracker-4.3-linux , or whatever your login name happens to be.
It all depends on how the file's author made the tarball.  You can (and
should, in fact) check before untarring by running

        tar ztvf tracker-4.3-linux.tar.gz ,

which will list all of the files in the tarball.  Or, use the gzip -d and
tar (without the 'z' option) commads separately if you prefer.  After you
make and install from within the subdirectory, well, the actual executable
will go where the makefile tells it to go.

Ah, this is the key part of my problem.....is there something in the
tarball
that tells the executable where to put itself or is it up to you
to make that
decision?  If you have to make that decision, how do you do
it when doing
' makefile ' ?

 

        Hope this helps.

Jamie

Egg, eggie sunlink net
FMS3amr A- C- H+ M+ P+++ R+ T Z+ Sp#
RL->CT a cu++ e++ f h+ iw+ j p- sm#

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