On Sun, 7 Dec 2008, in the Usenet newsgroup linux.redhat, in article
<259212f2-5f08-4c55-8810-b51cced7e4d1.TakeThisOut@k41g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>, Ernst
wrote:
NOTE: Posting from groups.google.com (or some web-forums) dramatically
reduces the chance of your post being seen. Find a real news server.
>I've installed RH 8.0 on an Intel box.
Where did you dig that up? Some old book in a library? RH 8.0 was
released 30 September 2002, and was replaced on 7 April 2003 by RH 9
and that was the last of that series - the replacement was Fedora Core
1 released 5 November 2003. The current Fedora version is 10, released
a couple of weeks ago. All support for RH 8.0 officially ended at the
end of 2003, although there was limited back-ports until May 2004.
The basic story is "It's dead, Jim, and has been for years. Find
something more modern.
>I've tried to install RPMs (Flash player upgrade, and Xine).
>I double-clicked on the RPM, got installation dialog, and indications
>that the Xine package installed without a hitch. Problem is....I can't
>find the executable to run the application.
rpm is a command line package manager, so it sounds as if you are using
some unknown GUI helper. First, randomly clicking on icons ESPECIALLY
AS ROOT is a _really_ bad thing - that is how your system will get 0wn3d
because you don't know what it is doing. Secondly, what was the name of
the file - the rpm - that you clicked on? Third, where did you get
them, as I don't see anything obvious in the list of 1473 packages that
came with RH 8.0? That makes them even more suspicious.
rpms come in two styles. There is a _binary_ or executable, that might
be named something like
mysql-3.23.52-3.i386.rpm
There is also a package used IN ADDITION when you are building or
compiling stuff that needs mysql - it would be named
mysql-devel-3.23.52-3.i386.rpm
Now in both cases, you'll notice it has a processor type (i386 for
the 80386 through various x86-64 processors - it's the package
designed for everything). You may also find 'noarch.rpm' which is
generally a text package not dependent on the processor, i586 and i686
which refer to later Pentiums, various AMD types and so on.
There is another type of package that would be
mysql-3.23.52-3.srpm or mysql-3.23.52-3.src.rpm
and these are the _source_ packages, which install the source code
(usually C or C+ language) into /usr/src/redhat/*/* and these are not
likely to be useful to you. These do not contain an executable, but
allow you to _build_ the executable.
>What did I miss?
A modern distribution. Start again, but this time install something
that is less than 6 months old. To find out what that might be (there
are literally hundreds of Linux distributions), go to
http://www.distrowatch.com/ and find something there. Examples of
suitable CDs might be 'Ubuntu 8.10', 'openSUSE 11.0', 'Fedora 10',
'Mandriva 2009', 'Debian 4.0r5' or similar.
Distributions that come in a book (as you would find in a library) tend
to be old - it takes several months to create the book and get that
into the stores, yet most Linux distributions are on a twice-a-year
release cycle. If there is a book, LOOK AT THE COPYRIGHT DATE.
Something that is 12 months old is nearly obsolete, and two years old
is virtually dead and should be buried.
Old guy
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