To extract and unzip a tar.gz or tgz file do this:
tar -xzf your-software.tar.gz
This will likely create a directory named something similar to the name of the tarball hanging directly from the directory you are located right now.
Then, cd into that directory and look for the configure script.
It’s that easy.
For example, let’s say you want to build the gettext tool from the sources. You’ll do something like this:
jesus@xenakis:~/tests$ ls
gettext-0.16.1.tar.gz
jesus@xenakis:~/tests$ tar -xzf gettext-0.16.1.tar.gz
jesus@xenakis:~/tests$ ls
gettext-0.16.1 gettext-0.16.1.tar.gz
jesus@xenakis:~/tests$ cd gettext-0.16.1/
jesus@xenakis:~/tests/gettext-0.16.1$ ls
aclocal.m4 build-aux configure.ac gettext-tools Makefile.am PACKAGING version.sh
AUTHORS ChangeLog COPYING gnulib-local Makefile.in README
autoconf-lib-link ChangeLog.0 djgpp INSTALL NEWS README.woe32
autogen.sh configure gettext-runtime m4 os2 THANKS
jesus@xenakis:~/tests/gettext-0.16.1$ ./configure --help
`configure' configures this package to adapt to many kinds of systems.
Usage: ./configure [OPTION]... [VAR=VALUE]...
To assign environment variables (e.g., CC, CFLAGS...), specify them as
VAR=VALUE. See below for descriptions of some of the useful variables.
Defaults for the options are specified in brackets.
...
...
...
YFLAGS The list of arguments that will be passed by default to $YACC.
This script will default YFLAGS to the empty string to avoid a
default value of `-d' given by some make applications.
GCJ Java native code compiler command
GCJFLAGS Java native code compiler flags
EMACS the Emacs editor command
EMACSLOADPATH
the Emacs library search path
Use these variables to override the choices made by `configure' or to help
it to find libraries and programs with nonstandard names/locations.
jesus@xenakis:~/tests/gettext-0.16.1$
you have to go to Yast and install the make to be able to make files. After that though I am stuck too :P. I am one step ahead and now I am getting: “make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.”
I’ll keep checking to see if I can find info. I am trying to install quite a few things and can’t find any info on how to do that. One is moblock and the other is ts2dvd. Arghhhh
i did this, hmmm, last week for the first time I think. There are a lot of pacakages you will need to install. I wish there was a one click install to install them. But as you go along, and it comes up with things like “command not found” install it, and yeah, install the devel packages for it too. It’s frustrating when you first learn to do it, but bloody rewarding when you install your first pacakage.
Sorry for the one-year late reply … But just a suggestion: it may be that the application has installed but hasn’t put an icon in the menus. To run it, you might have to type the application’s name in a terminal.