Re: [PLUG] newbie

[sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>]

hi bryan,

On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:34:08PM -0800, Bryan Tseng wrote:
> Hi, my name is Bryan and I am a newcomer to linux. In
> fact, I just got linux yesterday. I tried to read
> through some websites and lear about linux, but most
> of the lingo are a bit advance for me. Right now, I'm

what kind of "linux" did you get?  there are many different
distributions, and they all have their own ways of doing things,
as well as their own documentation.

> just trying to use linux like a regular personal
> computer, I've downloaded aim and winamp, and

there's a winamp port for linux?  

> in winamp, a window shows up and says "the winamp
> software has already been installed" but the program

it sounds like you're re-running the installer program instead of
the program itself.  i'd take another look at the documentation
for the program you downloaded.

> doesn't show up. What should I go? Also, from my
> reading and I understood that gz means the file is
> zipped, so I would need to unzip it before I can
> install the file, correct? (I'm also trying to a p2p
> software) but the file type is of .tar? How would I

.gz means a gzip-compressed file.  this is similar in function to
a .zip file, but a different format.  you can unzip it with gunzip.
.tar mean a "tape archive", and is basically an uncompressed file
containing a whole bunch of other files.  you can extract it with

tar xvf file.tar

it's not uncommon to see a file in .tar.gz or .tgz format, which means
it's a gzipped tar file.  the gnu tar implementation can gunzip and
extract at the same time:

tar xvfz file.tgz

> deal with that kind of things? Lastly, if somoene can
> give me some tips on how they got familiar with it
> when they first started using linux, I would very much
> appreciate it. Sorry for such a long email, thank you.

well, you're on the right track by joining a mailing list
like this.  some distributions also have users mailing lists that
might provide more insight too.  there are lots of books available
for the more popular distributions, as well as online documentation.

lastly, many distributions provide documentation with the system itself.
a popular documentation form is the fine man page.  most programs on
your system have an online man page, which you can view by typing

man programname

on the console.  try it with tar or gunzip for a good example.  by the
way, if you are ever told to rtfm, you're being told to read this fine
man page :)

hope that helps, and good luck.

	sean

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