tarballs and rpm's

[John B. Pace]

I'm looking for assistance to dealing with tarballs and rpm's. I haven't
been around linux in some 10 years and at 54 my memory is quite fuzzy.
Actually the last time around I had a lot of difficulties until I had to
give up. Not this time. I've got a lot figured out, but have more, of
course--like those tar.gz and rpm files. How does one install them? I've
looked over the internet for an answer and spent about 5 days on it. I
was trying to install Adobe shockwave, which comes as a tar.gz or an
rpm. Your help is appreciated!   John Pace