[Mohit Daksh]

I just switched over to linux and am having some difficulty installing .tar.bz2 files..


Upto the configure stage everything goes well. After configuring when I give the make command following message is displayed

make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.

Can somebody tell me what I am doing wrong... THis happens to every .tar.bz2 file

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tar just means it is a zipped file, could you give a bit more detail please, which distro, what package, etc., also, often there is an easier way though the package download manager but which linux first please

[fleamailman]

tar just means it is a zipped file, could you give a bit more detail please, which distro, what package, etc., also, often there is an easier way though the package download manager but which linux first please

[Mohit Daksh]

I specified it in the subject but I forgot to specify in my topic.. I am using fedora core 7

[Kemasa]

.bz2 is a compressed file and as was stated, .tar is a tar file.

It is best to look at what is in the tar file before extracting the files, unless you REALLY trust the source of the file. To do this, type:

tar tvjf FILENAME

To extract the files, change the arguments to "xvjf". The "v" is to be verbose, the "j" is to uncompress using bzip2 and the "f" is to specify the file to use.

Once you extract the files, what you have to do varies with the package.

[Mohit Daksh]

Okay thanks a lot for your advice.. I am trying to learn and hopefully linux will be a good experience

[Kemasa]

Linux should be a good experience, although each distro is different. Fedora Code 7 seems to be quite old (2007) as the current version is 11. You might want to use a more recent version. Many people like Ubuntu. Many packages may not be available due to the age.

There are many package tools that you might consider since that can make it easier, depending on what you are trying to load. There are programs like apt-get, which makes it easy to get and install a package. I think it runs on Fedora.

[Mohit Daksh]

I have installed FC7 only for the time being as I didn't have the FC11 DVD but wanted to try linux..

Tomorrow I'll go to college and get FC11 DVD.


One more thing I want to know.. I heard somewhere that newer versions of FC need to be freshly installed instead of upgrading from the earlier version.. That means I'll lose my data.. IS it true?

[Kemasa]

Often you do need to do a fresh install. You might want to check out Debian as that seems to be able to do upgrades a bit better. I am not sure of how Ubuntu does with respect to upgrades. You might want to check to see if there is a Linux Users Group near you.

In terms of not losing your data, you should partition the disk so that your personal data is on a separate partition. I would also suggest creating two root filesystems (or perhaps three) so that you can install a new version without wiping out the old version. In addition, you should have a separate boot partition (around 100M) so that you can select which partition to boot and so that it will not be wiped out when you reload the root filesystem. Depending on what you load, 6-10Gb is enough for a root filesystem. You can also install and/or move some packages you install to a separate partition so that you don't have to reload it with new versions of the OS.

[Mohit Daksh]

Thanks a lot of all this info

Can you suggest me some book or some website that teaches me a bit about linux... I am very new to linux and want to learn about it in detail, I know I will have to learn most of the things by myself or in forums but please give me something to start from...
Thanks a lot for your patience and help

Edited by Mohit Daksh, 05 October 2009 - 05:09 AM.

[Kemasa]

I really don't know of any websites or books. I have been using Unix/Linux for a long time, so I am not familiar with sites which would teach that. Local users groups (LUGs) are a good start.

Perhaps others who are reading this can give their suggestions.