Programs (generally)

[shaun680]

Hi all,

All of the preinstalled linux programs work fine. It's just that when I download and install other programs, for example AMSN, they wont open when I click on them in the menu, or double-click in Nautilius. I have to open up a terminal, change into the directory and ./filename, which means it works fine, but if I close the terminal down, the program also terminates. I was wondering if this is normal, or am I doing something wrong? The files were in .tar.gz format, and I installed them by:

tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz
cd filename
make
make install

while logged in as root. Also the same thing happened when I installed a src.rpm by rpm --rebuild file.rpm. Any help would be much appreciated.

Shaun

p.s. I am using RedHat 7.3 Kernel 2.4.18-3 and using GNOME if this is of any help

[JimH]

All of the preinstalled linux programs work fine. It's just that when I download and install other programs, for example AMSN, they wont open when I click on them in the menu, or double-click in Nautilius. I have to open up a terminal, change into the directory and ./filename, which means it works fine, but if I close the terminal down, the program also terminates. I was wondering if this is normal, or am I doing something wrong?

Are these terminal or GUI programs?
Are these programs executable only by the root user?
Did you add the menu entries yourself? Have you tried using the full path to the executable when you add the menu entry. Maybe the programs are not being installed in your path.

while logged in as root. Also the same thing happened when I installed a src.rpm by rpm --rebuild file.rpm. Any help would be much appreciated.

This only creates a binary rpm. It does not install it. You still need to install the binary rpm that is created by using rpm --rebuild.

P.S. rpm --rebuild is depreciated use: rpmbuild --rebuild.

Jim H

[shaun680]

Are these terminal or GUI programs?
Are these programs executable only by the root user?
Did you add the menu entries yourself? Have you tried using the full path to the executable when you add the menu entry. Maybe the programs are not being installed in your path.

They're GUI programs...when I run them from the terminal the GUI pops up and everything runs fine. I installed them as root and tried to run them while logged in as root and as a normal user to no sucess. The menu entries appeared after install, I didn't add them.

This only creates a binary rpm. It does not install it. You still need to install the binary rpm that is created by using rpm --rebuild.

I did install the binary, although I couldn't find the actual binary rpm so I installed it with GnoRPM. This also put the menu entry in etc.

Shaun

[JimH]

The menu entries appeared after install, I didn't add them.

Check the menu entries and make sure they are correct.

Strange that you are having problems with both rpm's and tar.gz files.
Post the output of this:

echo $PATH

Jim H

[shaun680]

Post the output of this:

echo $PATH

#echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/root/bin

???

Oh and I'm not sure if the menu entries are right, I right clicked them and clicked "properties" and in the "Command" box it just had "amsn" which I changed to "/home/msn/aMSN" but this made no difference.

Shaun

[JimH]

You installed it in /home?

This will show you where the amsn binaries are on your system.

whereis -b amsn

Jim H

[shaun680]

You installed it in /home?

i downloaded the tar.gz file to /home, and then extracted which created a directory called /home/msn which i then went into and did make & make install. amsn was a tar, the other file that i tried which was an src.rpm is called everybuddy (same sort of IM thing), which has the same problems.

Shaun

[JimH]

These programs apparently are not in your path.

What was the output of: whereis -b amsn

Jim H

[trommaster]

amsn is a tk script
it needs to run from the current directory.
the way to get around this is create a bash script
#!/bin/sh
cd /home/me/msn
./amsn
save and make exectuable (chmod a+x runmsn)
then create a launcher to that

Alastair