Does anyone know of a program that I can have compile source for me with only a few mouse clicks? I am pretty new to Linux and haven't really figured out too much about using "make install" and havent compiled anything from source. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks John Lawrence

Use kdevelop for KDE.

I'm not sure if you can get a graphical frontend for it, but checkinstall will run "make install" for you and create a TGZ, RPM or DEB package for you which you can install with a double click (for mandrake you want to go for RPM) You still have to run "./configure" and "make" though....

If what you want is to install additional software on your computer, the easiest way is to use the Mandrake Package Management system. Open the Install Software program in the Mandrake menu at System * Configuration * Packaging * Install Software. If the program you want to install is listed, you can simply check-mark the item, then click the Install button. The packages included with your Mandrakelinux distribution are pre patched to work correctly with your system. If you really want to compile software, I am sorry, but the only method I am aware of is to use a terminal window or console screen. I will outline the process as clearly as I can. Our scenario is as follows: You have downloaded a new program from the Internet. The program is named foo. The file you downloaded to your home directory on your computer is named foo-1.0.tar. This is an archive file containing the source files for foo 1.0. The first step is to view the contents of foo-1.0.tar: [user@host user]$ tar foo-1.0.tar -tvf This will list the contents of foo-1.0.tar verbosely. We see that the first entry is foo-1.0, and all other entries start with foo-1.0/. This tells us the archive will generate its own sub-directory. We can simply extract foo-1.0.tar now with: [user@host user]$ tar foo-1.0.tar -xvf Switch to the foo directory just created by tar with: [user@host user]$ cd foo-1.0 List the files in foo-1.0: [user@host foo-1.0]$ ls -al The list reveals there is a README file and an INSTALL file. The README file contains information about foo-1.0 We will view it with: [user@host foo-1.0]$ vi ./README This opens the README file in vi. The information in README files will vary. You may see what software or libraries foo-1.0 needs to work correctly. For our scenario, all required software or libraries are installed. To get out of vi: :qa You must enter the colon (:) and the qa, then press the ENTER key. Now view the INSTALL file as you did the README file. It will usually contain directions to install foo-1.0 Exit vi as you did before. For my purposes, the information directed us to use a common installation sequence: Now, create and configure the make-file for this installation using the following command: [user@host foo-1.0]$ ./configure The configuration script finishes without error :). To use make, we must have administrative privileges. For administrative privileges, switch to the root user with the su command, and enter the root password when prompted: [user@host foo-1.0]$ su <Enter root password> Now, as the administrator compile foo-1.0 using the make command. Make will read the make-file created by the configure script, and compile foo-1.0 for us. [root@host foo-1.0]# make The final step is to install foo-1.0 using the make command again: [root@host foo-1.0]# make install You will want to know where foo-1.0 was installed. We will use locate to find foo: [root@host foo-1.0]# locate foo locate returns /usr/bin/foo /usr/bin is in our path, so we can simply execute foo with: [root@host foo-1,0]# foo foo runs OK for the root user, now we will try it as our regular user account - user. To switch back to the regular user enter CTRL+D. This will close the root session, and revert back to the original user session. We can now try foo again: [user@host foo-1,0]$ foo Foo runs successfully as a regular user. We are done. A few ending notes are appropriate here. If the foo package we downloaded had been named foo-1.0.tar.gz, we would have used the following command to extract the contents: [user@host user]$ tar foo-1.0.tar -xvfz If the file had been named foo-1.0.bz2 we would have used the following command: [user@host user]$ tar foo-1.0.tar -xvfj To learn more about the tar program, use: [user@host user]$ info tar This will display the tar manual. HTH, Ernie [ewilcox@buckeye-express.com] ICQ 41060744 Registered Linux User 247790

Thanks for your help, I have tried using Make Install before, but the reason I don't want to try to use it again, is because the program I tried installing didn't work. The instructions ernie gave however, seemed to make a bit more sense than what I've read in the past. I think now, I'll give it another shot. Also thanks Birdman and 3Dave, for your suggestions, I might try those programs too. Thanks John Lawrence