Install?- Willis: get eSword for Ubuntu, find flightsim software, or install a tarball

[anthony baldwin]

Willis wrote:
>>   
>>     
> If I knew what to do with the tar ball I positive I would have noticed 
> but since the point of the exercise is to learn to be of help to folks 
> that have computers and do not have internet connections it really 
> doesn't matter.  I'm the tech advisor for my church family and I am 
> going to stear them away from Windows, in favor of Ubuntu and thus far 
> I'm getting very little help from the forums and the mail list.  All I 
> wish to do is to be able to download a program and allow the less 
> privileged to use it, just like I have enabled people with Windows units 
> and no phone line.  Out here in east Texas we really do have folks like 
> that.
>
>   
Here, take a look at this:
http://www.whatwouldjesusdownload.com/linuxforchristians/2007/03/e-sword-for-ubuntu.html
It allows you to install eSword on Ubuntu, and should be relatively easy.

Now, as far as the tarballs...If you are using KDE you should be able to 
simply
right click on it and extract it to where you wish.
I'm not sure if that function is present in gnome.
I would highly suggest opening a terminal and doing
$ man tar
That should give you the man page (manual) for tar.
I confess that I've read that man page, and find much of it confusing.
Often man pages are directed at those that already have a strong
'nix vocabulary.  I've been using linux for nearly 8 years now, and
still make little sense of some man pages.  On the other hand,
sometimes they are helpful.
I assume that what you probably have is something like
flightsimthingy-1.010.Linux.blahblahblah.tar.gz.
This means it is gzipped, too.
Do
$ man gzip
Really, in kde, extracting it is simple as a rt click and choose 
"extract here"
or "extract to flightsimthingy", or something.  At least in Dapper.
I found this function lacking in feisty, and have not tried gutsy.
N E hao...
Once it is extracted, you need to enter the directory where you extracted
it, in terminal, and find the means of installation.
Keep in mind that I am not an "expert"by any stretch of the imagination, as
I attempt to be helpful.  If I say anything really stupid, someone 
likely will correct me.
I started using Linux (then, RH based k12 lingux, later Fedora, and now 
Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is the easiest to use, and least likely to break itself, imho. )
Since I am unfamiliar with the program you are attempting to install,
I am unaware of what it requires for installation, but, let's just take 
a hypothetical
situation, based on what I believe to be most common.
Say you downloaded this flight simulator to /home/willis, and then extracted
it to /home/willis/flightthingy (just for argument sake, and, obviously, 
I don't
recall the name of the program, but, you would use it's actual name).
You would open a terminal and do this:
$ cd /home/willis/flight
I would then do
$ ls
This would list the contents of that directory.
Do you see a file called make, make install, configure?
If you see a file called configure, then, in terminal simply do
$ ./configure
You'll see a lot of text whizzing by.
Then do
$ make
Then do
$ make install
If you're lucky, and not missing dependencies, you're program will be 
installed.
I would then do
$ whereis flight
(or whatever the full name of that program is)
Likely, you'll get a response like
/usr/bin/flight /usr/lib/flight
Then, if you do
$ /usr/bin/flight
The program should open.
You could even add an icon to your desktop, giving it the command 
/usr/bin/flight
to start the program.
Note, this is all rather simplified.
I may have left something out...I hope not.
Of course, if you're not lucky, you are missing libs that the program
requires and will get errors of the sort "flighthingy requires 
libblahblah.1.34.82,
in which case, you could try to get said lib with apt
$sudo apt-get install libblahblah.1.34.82
Hopefully that would remedy the situation.  If you require numerous libs,
likely you would have to do this for each one of them.
And, if you're lucky, they are all present in our repos.
Really, the best way to install any program in Ubuntu, if possible, is 
to use
apt, synaptic or adept to simply install it from the debs in our repos,
since apt will take care of also adding any depencies (libs, like dlls, 
that you
additionally need to run the program).  There are 10s of thousands of 
programs
available to us in there.  I have not had a install a program from 
scratch since
moving to Ubuntu a little over a year ago.
I even think there are a couple of flight sim programs in the repos.
Installing from source tarballs and stuff like that is a large PITA.
I am assuming that this flight simulator you want is not in the repos, or
you would have done that, but, you might want to check and see what is.
Open synaptic and hit the search button and put in "flight simulator".
You will find xsabre, gl-117 and flightgear.  Maybe one of those will 
meet your needs.
They'll be ridiculously easy to install, since all you will have to do 
it mark for install
and let synaptic do the heavy lifting.
With that, I offer you the following links that may very well be quite 
helpful:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware
http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-source-files-in-ubuntu.html

I hope I did more good than harm.

good luck,
/tony

-- 
http://www.baldwinlinguas.com
Translation & Interpreting