Uber nub question. Installing stuff

[amirShah]

Hi. I'm an uber nub when it comes to linux. I pretty much installed Kubuntu because Windows XP would not work.Anyway. My question is:
How do you install stuff?
I downloaded firefox, and extracted it to a folder, but neither of the two executable files are working (yes, i got the linux version).

Also how can I connect to my home network with all XP computers?


Thanks!

-Amir Shah

[jbinc1]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

Take a look here.

http://kudos.berlios.de/kf/kf1.html

There's alot of really good info for Kubuntu.

Regards

[amirShah]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

Cool, thanks for that tutorial.
I was reading it, and it was talking about the repositories ans stuff, but when I tried to modify the scorches.list file, it said that I didn't have access to do that. So, I went and attemped to log in as root after setting the password and everything, but it said that root login is not allowed. Why is this?


Also, I was also wondering whats the difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu? Ii know that Kubuntu comes with the KDE, and that's why I got it, but what is that, and whats better for me? (I'm am a little above average PC user never used linux before.)

[analyticalman]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

kubuntu & ubuntu use the sudo command to allow you to undertake actions that you would commonly log in as root to do in other linux distros. So to edit your apt repositories, open an x terminal (konsole) and type sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list. You will be asked for your normal password. Make your changes control+x to save follow the prompts and you are done.

Kubuntu and Ubuntu have the same base system. As you say, kubuntu comes with KDE, Ubuntu comes with Gnome. These are different "desktop environments". To many of us, which one we use is simply a question of taste, Kubuntu users prefer KDE to Gnome, Ubuntu users other way round. There are other less featured "window managers" which you can use instead of KDE or Gnome like fluxbox or Enlightenment (and there are loads more)

You may be interested to know that whilst my description of KDE vs Gnome is one of mild preference, to many others it is a question of passionate debate because it cuts to the heart of what some people believe in regarding how "free" software and ideas should be. KDE and Gnome have different licenses and there are some who believe that KDE is wrong because it uses the product of a commercial company (Trolltech) in order to produce it. Google for "Richard M Stallman" or more amusingly "KDE vs Gnome" if you are interested in knowing more

[amirShah]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

...Very interesting...
I finally figured out how to install things. I find it to be more convinient than Windows. Ok, Hopefully this will be my last question;
My wireless network has a hidden ID and a WEP key. So, when I am connected it says "no access point found" and in Samba Shared it says that no workgroups were detected in my network. How can I fix this?

You have my thanks.

-Amir Shah

[analyticalman]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

To connect to the network wirelessly you must input your SSID (Identity) and your WEP key. Have you done that?

[amirShah]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

Yes, I can connect to the network, and everything. WEP and SSID were entered, and the internet works.

Also, I was tring to install Wine, and I did

Building the Wine Package from Source using APT:
APT also allows easy compilation from source of a package. This is useful if there is no binary package available for your architecture, or if you wish to create a fresh .deb file from scratch. To do this, first follow the instructions for installing from the console above, except instead of running apt-get install wine run 'apt-get build-dep wine'. This will download the needed development packages for your system to make the wine package. Then, run 'apt-get --build source wine', have a snack, and wait for the compiling to finish.
To install your newly created package (which should be in whatever directory you were in when you ran apt-get --build source), run 'dpkg -i wine*.deb' as root.

When I did the compiling I got the following errors:

make[3]: *** [lex.yy.o] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/root/wine-0.9.5-winehq/libs/wpp'
make[2]: *** [wpp] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/wine-0.9.5-winehq/libs'
make[1]: *** [libs] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/wine-0.9.5-winehq'
make: *** [build-stamp] Error 2
Build command 'cd wine-0.9.5-winehq && dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc' failed.
E: Child process failed

What does that mean?

Ok, I know this is alot for one post, but what has more support, Ubuntu, or kubuntu?

[mchuskie]

Re: Uber nub question. Installing stuff

The crucial lines are the lines before all those error messages! Could you post again with more of the errors?

I've never tried to compile a *.deb from source before... I prefer the standard routine of

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

although this does mean there are potential problems with package dependencies...

Out of interest, why are you trying to install wine from source? In Adept, go to Adept > Manage Repositories and add the following line:

deb http://wine.sourceforge.net/apt/ binary/

Click Add, Apply, then Fetch Updates. You should then be able to install ready-made Wine packages.