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

[James Takac]

On Sunday 02 December 2007 03:01:14 anthony baldwin wrote:
> 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-fo
>r-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


Hi Anthony

Believe it or not, it's the same one I suggested

James