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Just spent 2 days of my life trying to install an application on linux RH and Debian

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My wife is doing her masters in Material engineering, she found a modeling tool that runs on here: https://www.ctcms.nist.gov/archives/software/wulffman/. So I made the obvious and DL Redhat Linux and started to install, I liked the setup process and I started with the first CD. I thought I could skip the last 2 discs which I found out that are needed almost at the end of install (Thank god for Save State in Virtual PC). The third disc was needed for only 4 mb....

Then I started to DL all the RPM (MSI like packages) and started to install, just to find out one of the dependencies didn't run on RedHat, the solution should have been simple, download the sources compile them on RH and somehow find out where to put the files. Couldn't find a way to compile them.

I wen to a econd solution and installed Debian, not really installed, I used Knoppix it's a CD that runs Debian without installing it, using RAM as a HD to the session. Then I found out that there aren't any RPM for Debian (it works fine for RH). I just gave up. If any linux guys are reading this: guys, you really need to make it simple. I admit I am not a linux expert and I don't hate linux in any way and I'm quite happy with the fact windows needs to compete with another OS but it needs to be simpler than that.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2004
    this is THE problem with Linux!

    I have been thru this with every package that was not "Built in" the number of tarballs you have to go find and build to get one program up is just pathetic at times...

    esp. as you may encounter dependancy chains where

    a nneds b
    b needs c and d
    c needs d and e and f
    .... soon you find you have spent 2 days basicly grabbing a half a CD of code to get a 50K binary to install and run!

    this is one of the reasons that Linux is still a "Tech" system and WIndows is the desktop of choice for most folks....
  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
  1. The packages are in a deb format, what do I need to do in order to install them? Double Click does not work.
    2. I'm not saying in any way that Microsoft has the best technology for installing application, all I said is that MSI is far more simple than wht I have seen BUT yet again I'm no expert nor a regular user of linux so I might be missing something here.
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    apt-get is a program??

    Thanks for the help.
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    Yes, apt-get is a program and it's a lot friendlier than dpkg.

    As for compiling on Linux: download, uncompress and run "make config", "make" and "make install". And forget about GUI, that's good for running an app, not for setting up your system. You have to realize that even on Windows a regular user (who doesn't run as an admin) cannot install most applications anyways, so please do not go on about how installing an app is just another action a regular user does.
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    I agree, the fact that my mother is running with admin account is way wrong..
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    FWIW

    Linux usually uses an installer
    to install software
    instead of the package itself
    self excecuting.

    With debian you have a master file
    /etc/apt/sources.list
    (You'll need to read about its syntax)


    This file contains a list of places where to get software.
    They may be ftp sites, http sites, mounted file system directories, floppies. CDs etc.
    (You'll need to read about it's syntax)

    Linux programs usually link to libraries instead of just compiling them into one humongous application.

    I use a text based install called
    dselect

    You can put your private collect of .deb in a directory. Then with dselect use the

    mounted Install from a filesystem.....

    option.
    During your package's install all it's dependencies will be checked for availability from the /etc/apt/sources.list

    If all of the dependencies can be met then they are marked for installation along with your package.


    Of course you can still hand install software outside of the packaging system.

    The wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux.gz does NOT look like a .deb package. I did a

    gunzip wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux.gz

    to it and got

    wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux

    This looks like something you would have to hand install.

    You might suggest it to Debian for packaging.





  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    Waiting for Debian to package it is going to take ages.
    And for some unknown reason the authors did not package the file in .DEB or .RPM (equivalent to .MSI).

    Anyway... download the file:
    http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/cgi-bin/registersw.pl?file=/archives/software/wulffman/archive/wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux.gz

    Save it somewhere, and from console unpack it:

    gunzip wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux.gz


    Now you'll have the file "wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux" and you start it by entering:

    ./wulffman_1.2.4_i386Linux


    I agree, it would waaay easier if they had made a .DEB or .RPM which installs it in the correct location and setup some shortcuts on the startmenus.
  • Anonymous
    May 10, 2004
    The comment has been removed