linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Linux help

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 09:35, Ron Wicker <rwicker1@verizon.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the response. The Programs are as follows:
> gpsk31-0.2a.tar.gz
> kpsk-1.0.tar.bz2
> ax25ip.dpkiss.tar.gz
>
> I want to run these from the desk top. Any help would be appreciated.
> Ron, AA5NI.......

Hey Ron,

As was pointed out in a previous post, those files are compressed
files (think of them like zip files in the windows world). They could
contain just source code, or they could contain fully compiled
programs that are ready to go.

So let's try to get those open. You need to learn the CLI, so here we
go. First, in your home directory, make a directory called ham.
# mkdir /home/<username>/ham

be sure to put your username in place of <username>

Next, you need to move those files into your ham directory.

# cp /path/to/filename /ham

/path/to/filename should be self explanitory. But just in case, if
your kpsk file was downloaded to your /home/<username> directory, you
would do this:

# cp /home/<username>/kpsk-1.0.tar.bz2 /home/<username>/ham

do that for all three.

Now we need to open them up.

inside the ham directory, make three new directories like this:

# mkdir kpsk gpsk32 as25ip

and now cd into kpsk

# cd kpsk

And open the tarball from the parent directory like this:

tar -jxvf ../kpsk-1.0.tar.bz2

and that will populate the kpsk directory with the contents of the kpsk file.

Do this for each of them... HOWEVER, there is a difference to be noted here.

The kpsk file is compressed using a program called bzip2, while the
other two are compressed using gzip.

The j option used with tar tells tar to run the file through bunzip2
first, before opening the package to decompress it.

for gzipped tarballs (ones ending in .gz) you need to use z instead of
j, like this:

tar -zxvf <filename>

the other options are as follows:

-z, -j = run through gzunzip/gzip or bunzip2/bzip2 respectively
-x = extract tar archive contents
-v = verbose (tells you every file being extracted)
-f = tells tar to use the following filename

Now that you have done this, look in each of those directories and
explore. You should find files named README.1ST or just README or
install.txt or something like that. Check those out and they should
give you installation, building, or usage instructions.

Feel free to ask if you get stuck :-)

73, de Jeff W4KDH

--

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