Installing Downloaded software

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Sun, 2010-04-11 at 15:21 -0700, Michael Miles wrote:
> On 04/11/2010 03:11 PM, Henry Wyatt wrote:
> > Need to know basics of how o install downloaded programs ie,  Mozilla 
> > Firefox 3.6 and Open Office, both files end in .gz
> >
> > -- 
> > Henry E Wyatt Jr
> both those files can be installed via add/remove software in the system tab
> 
> if you must just download and open with archive manager when you see the 
> prompt
> extract to a empty folder(create one)
> 
> thats it
> 
> gz is a compressed format for transmission reasons like zip,rar,arc etc...

This is bad advice. Installing .gz files (or even random rpms) when
there are perfectly good packages in the supported repos is just asking
for trouble. The installed software will not be integrated with the
package management system, so it will not be kept up to date, will
eventually cause dependency problems, and will need to be reported
upstream if any assistance is required.

Use the built-in software management tools. For a novice user, the GUI
versions (Install/Remove software) are probably best. Later on, get to
know yum ("man yum" from the Shell).

[Note that the latest Firefox in the stable repo is 3.5.9. My advice is
to use it unless you know you need 3.6, because when 3.6 is released to
the repo it will update cleanly.]

poc