New Linux User Needs Help

[NeilT]

I just got an Acer Aspire One (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=7797) which runs on Linpus Linux Lite. This is the first time I have ever used Linux as my OS and I have no clue how to do simple task such as upgrade firefox or install new apps.

I have spent lots of time googling but have yet to find anything that helps me. If anyone could help me out it would be great!

Thanks.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

Linpus is based off of fedora so it likely uses the Redhat package manager.

Here is some documentation on it: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7-Manual/ref-guide/s1-rpm-using.html

Why did you buy a laptop that didn't have an OS you were familiar with?

Also you may be able to install Windows XP on it or a different flavor of linux like Ubuntu.

[NeilT]

I have actually been to that page, but have no clue what it means...

Installing a package is as simple as:

# rpm -ivh foo-1.0-1.i386.rpm
foo ####################################
#



ummm ok... that does not look very simple to me. lol. Am I supposed to type that somewhere?

The Aspire One came with an interface which is very user friendly and has all the essentials one click away BUT I can't figure out how to do some other stuff like install apps.

[_Aerospace_Eng_]

You need to open a terminal and type the commands you want. The downside of using rpm is that you need rpm packages.

[dvez25]

I also just bought the acer aspire one...just to learn something different other then windows....everything is pretty hands on and easy except, how do I upgrade my firefox...everytime i go to certain websites it asks me to upgrade...currently it has firefox 2, when I go the link, it won't upgrade...at least I don't know how...any help with this? Also, my Java is enabled but some websites are telling me to enable it.

Help?

[scoop_987]

hmm... whats the linux flavour? linpus? Im on openSuSE (another RH dist), and dont really see any problems with it apart from the wireless. First and foremost, installing an RPM should be as simple as clicking it (well... it is in openSuSE, maybe because of YaST?) otherwise you will need to use a terminal windows (its basically the same as Command Prompt in windows if you ever used it). Trying to describe what each step does to a newbie is real hard.

*This example and tutorial will use Firefox*

First of:
goto www.firefox.com and download the latest version.

2nd:
Choose where to save it, try use a path that doesnt have any spaces in it.

3rd:
Here comes the fun part, Open up your terminal window. Depending on what type of package you have, you will have different things to do.

1) In terminal, Change to the path (folder) that the file you downloaded in stored in:
Example:
Say we downloaded firefox to our home folder, we would do:

CD ~

The ~ means that it goes to the home dir of the current user. If we were to download FF to a seperate folder (/home/user/firefox), we would need to use the following:

CD /home/user/firefox/


If you downloaded a tar.gz, goto TAR.GZ section. If it was a tar.bz2 (which firefox is in), goto TAR.BZ2 and for RPM packages, goto RPM

2) Now we are in the correct folder, we now need to ungzip/unbzip and untar the archive. OR run the RPM using the following code(s) will work:

For tar.gz:
ungzip -c firefox-3.0.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -

For tar.bz2:
bzip2 -cd firefox-3.0.1.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -

For RPM:
rpm -ivh firefox-3.0-1.*ARCITECHTURE*.rpm

Not, the arc. can be i386, i586 (i think), x86_64 (64bit). This will depend on what you have installed.

We are doing two different functions here:
Unzipping the archive, and then untarring it. You can look up on what the flags do.

3) Now we need to change directory (folder) again:

CD firefox-3.0.1/


4) Now we are in the working directory. We need to get the list of all the files:

dir


This will give us a list of files with the permissions on the left and the names of the right (depending on the linux distribution)
Look for a configuration file (named configure)

5) If there isnt a conifguration file, skip this step, otherwise, follow:
We will now run the configure with the following code

sh ./configure

This should configure all the stuff we need.

6) Now we need to run the make:
In this order run these SEPERATE commands:

make Clean
make
make install


7) Now firefox should be installed

Im not going to promise that this will work on EVERY version on linux, but i know this works on openSuSE