Is there an “easy” explanation somewhere in the forum about how to install programs which are in tarball form?
I am relearning much of openSUSE and unsure of the compiling commands, which one(s) should be ran as a user, which commands should be ran as root… I’ve done a search on this topic and it seems there is a difference in login between make, make install, checkinstall etc.
I understand I’ll also need some developer packages to compile tarballs however I don’t know which ones. The last time I unsuccessfully tried to work with tarballs was when openSUSE 9.x was current. It’s been that long.
There is a program I absolutely need, it’s SecondLife which I haven’t found in any RPM repositories.
I’ve downloaded the “linux” version from their website. The file name is:
SecondLife-i686-2.5.2.223426.tar.bz2
I have a 64bit Toshiba notebook running 11.4
Any help is very much appreciated.
On 04/01/2011 10:36 PM, SteveFury61 wrote:
>
> Is there an “easy” explanation somewhere in the forum about how to
> install programs which are in tarball form?
welcome back!
several of them here: http://tinyurl.com/3hnstny
but, this one is probably the easiest: http://tinyurl.com/4fplzmn
[do not overlook the direction to look inside the tar ball and see
what and how the developer whats you to do it–the answer to one of
your Qs is: configure and make always as user, then make install as
root]
–
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
Tried LibreOffice? Do that and help at http://is.gd/dZ9j2W
[NNTP via openSUSE 11.3 + KDE4.5.5 + Thunderbird3.1.8]
On 2011-04-01 22:36, SteveFury61 wrote:
Maybe this should be in the programming forum? :-?
>
> Is there an “easy” explanation somewhere in the forum about how to
> install programs which are in tarball form?
Dunno.
Basically, read the readmes of the tarball. Usually you run everything as
user, somewhere in your home, then run “make install” or “checkinstall” as
root.
Typically, it is:
…/configure
make
make install
It is normal for the first phase to fail at first. You read the messages
and see what is missing, and install it. For example, it complains about
missing “library”, but you know it is installed: so you have to open yast,
search for “library”, and install “library-devel”, and try again.
Often what it needs and complains about doesn’t match the package name.
What I do is use “pin” to find it (I use a customized archive for pin).
Note that checkinstall is buggy, it is almost “abandon-software”. But
needed. Post the errors it gives and I’ll try to help.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
Thank you for the replies and links, which I’ll keep.
This is from the requirements section of the read me for that particular software I needed:
Linux Operating System: If you are running a 64-bit Linux distribution then
you will need its 32-bit compatibility environment installed, but
this configuration is not currently supported.
I’m also running XP in VirtualBox however this software doesn’t run within it because it doesn’t recognize the video hardware/driver. It’s a 3D graphical environment and very picky.
I’ll try and find another way around this.
Thanks again for your time. 
On 04/02/2011 03:06 AM, SteveFury61 wrote:
> I’ll try and find another way around this.
> Thanks again for your time.
welcome, but i can’t image that this path hasn’t been traveled
before…have you looked for bread crumbs, like here:
http://tinyurl.com/4xrrrpe [generic linux]
or
http://tinyurl.com/3plk8lq [openSUSE specific]
–
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
Tried LibreOffice? Do that and help at http://is.gd/dZ9j2W
[NNTP via openSUSE 11.3 + KDE4.5.5 + Thunderbird3.1.8]