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Re: Installing GCC and other packages on Linux
- From: Luca Saiu <positron at gnu dot org>
- To: Justin Lundeen <justin_lundeen at hotmail dot com>
- Cc: gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org
- Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 11:45:52 +0200
- Subject: Re: Installing GCC and other packages on Linux
- Organization: GNU Project
- References: <BAY16-F60GAVYlGrg1F00044b8a@hotmail.com>
Please notice that this list is devoted to discuss the development
*of* GCC, so it's not the right place to ask. If you have other
questions you can write me at positron@gnu.org instead of using this
address.
Justin Lundeen wrote:
Dear GCC Development Team,
I am having a lot of difficulty following the installation
instructions with GCC, and with every other Linux package I download off
of GNU.org.
Please use the term "GNU/Linux" when you refer to the whole operating
system (see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html); "Linux" is the
name of the kernel, which is only a part, although important, of the
operating system.
The GNU Project only distributes software as source code. For
executing or installing a program from source code you must first
translate it into machine code (also called "binary" code) using a
compiler, such as GCC; if you need more information about this see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code . When you have learnt the
basics compiling a program becomes really quite simple, but GCC is
particular in this sense: to compile GCC from the source code you first
need a compiler, and this compiler must be *in machine code* to be
executed on your machine.
If you're a beginner I suggest you to start installing *binary*
packages from your distribution CDs (and this is *essential* at least
for GCC and binutils). You will be able to use the source code later,
when you become a little more expert; don't be scared, it doesn't take
very long.
What program do I run to enter cd? Terminal? I've tried that
and I've even got so far as to get into the directories, but when I
wanted to get into the directory where the config, makefile, and install
files were at, it said invalid directory.
It's right to use a terminal program (I suppose you are using KDE or
Gnome) and cd, but I guess you haven't decompressed the archive. The
right command for decompressing would be tar xvfz gcc-VERSION.tar.gz (or
tar xvfj gcc-VERSION.tar.bz2 if you downloaded the bz2-compressed
version); however by now I suggest you to just install binary packages:
they're called RPMs in your distribution.
I would really appreciate
detailed instructions (as detailed as you can get without taking up a
lot of your time) to installing GCC and other applications.
As the first thing you need a tutorial. The one I used is now aging,
so I wouldn't advise it to you. I found this one referring to your
distribution; give it a try:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/pdf/rhl-gsg-en-9.pdf
(also this manual falls in the common mistake of using "Linux" as the
name of the whole operating system, but it doesn't seem bad otherwise).
After you master the graphic programs of your distribution start
learning the command line, and read the documentation.
Write me if you have more problems.
And if nobody has greeted you yet, welcome to free software
community. I hope you're here to stay.
--
Luca Saiu, maintainer of GNU epsilon
http://www.gnu.org/software/epsilon