Hi to you all... I'm a newbie who (after about three frustrating months) finally had a successful jump over to linux. Noticing that there isn't any lack of alternative apps out there for Linux my question is how do you install programs in Linux? I currently use Red Hat 7.1 so if, for example, I download a *.bin -- now what? do I make into an RPM and how?

Thanks in advance and I really appreciate any help.

bxb32001

Well it all depends on the program. Most are in tar.gz format in which you need to unpack with this command:

# tar -xzvf /filename

This will unpack the program and usually create a directory under the name of the tar.gz file.
From there, if you then cd into the new directory, there are usually INSTALL or README files to follow the rest of the instructions of installing that program usually doing a 'make' 'make install' etc..............

.bin files usually you can run them from the command line to start the install.

RPM is like tar.gz, for complete info on either you can look at their man pages associated with them.

Thanks amigo, I appreciate the tip...