Need Help Downloading With Ubuntu

Hey! I want you to have a look at this: http://packages.ubuntu.com/audacity I am trying to download audacity to Linux. But I don't know where I should go from here.. This is not the only place. I tryed to download amsn too, but I came to the same site (but for Amsn instead of audacity OFC). Can you please make a "mini tutorial" that can help me download and install the softwares? Thanks //Feelay Edit: Ok.. I don't even know how to install tar.gz softwares like the flash player.. I am a total noob, and would really like some help

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OK, that's why I told you to start with Mandriva. With Mandriva you click in the something.rpm file. With Ubuntu, you have to know the minimum noob's command line programs.
something.tar.gz is a the gzip-compressed version of the tar-compressed set of files.
I know, it could seem stupid to compress a compressed file, but in the Crosoft Windows world I also have seen people sending a rar file containing a zip file containing a text file.
Now, let's go with a mini tutorial.

step zero : you open a Linux command line box. Usually it's an icon with a box named "shell" or "console". Inside the box, you type "whoami" (without the quotes) in order to verify that you really opened a command line window, "whoami" should answer with your Linux user name.

step one : go to the directory where your something.tar.gz file is, and type
"gunzip something.tar.gz" # (still without the quotes, replacing "something" with your real file name.
Then, type "ls -l", you should see that the previously compressed something.tar.gz became now "something.tar" without the .gz

Now a general Unix commands explanation : the .gz extension means "compressed with gzip", the command for compressing toto.doc is "gzip toto.doc", which moves the large file toto.doc to a smaller file named toto.doc.gz You uncompress a compressed file by typing "gunzip toto.doc.gz", which brings back the "toto.doc file.

step three : now you have your something.tar file, you have to uncompress again to have the files inside the tarfile.
To do that, type "tar xvf something.tar"
You will see the names of all the extracted files.
Be careful, usually there are trees of files, for instance something/doc, something/doc/readme.txt, something/install

step four: most of the work is done. All the necessary files are in. In the list you have seen appearing, there is usually a file named "readme" or "readme.txt" or "readme.first" or "install.txt"

Depending from where you downloadied the thing, the further steps are simple or not, also depending from the guy who made the package.
When I make a package, my readme.txt says that you simply have to type install/install.sh
Some other people think that this is too simple, so for these packages you have to do something like
cd install
make clean
make
make install
And sometimes you even have to have the gcc compiler already installed before doing all these things.

OK, now at least you know how to unpack the something.tar.gz file. Please keep us informed with the rest of the story.

Regards
Yordan

 

 

 

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Not exactly Yordan, Mandriva has huge downsides to it also. You can't upgrade to newer versions of KDE easily and the kernel, etc.

Anyways, back to Ubuntu, have you used the Package Manager and used a repository that have an Audacity package? If you did it will be just as easy as going into the Package Manager (different for GNOME and KDE) and just search for Audacity, click on it and press the Install button.

xboxrulz

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