When I DL GoogleEarth or RealPlayer for Linux. They donload as *.bin files. What app opens them? I understand that application for Linux come as packages but how are they installed? And no there is no instruction file that comes with them. The OS manual does not describe what to do with bin files.

“bin files” are programs (executables) that you can just run.

Open up a shell and type in the program name.

./my_program_name

If it says you don't have permissions you'll need to do chmod 755 program_name

To see what chmod does, check google or type man chmod.

I sometimes feel that either I a getting wrong advice or am not interpreting the advice correctly.

I open a terminal in the folder where the bin files reside, type the name with and without the /. All I get is “no such file or directory” or 'commnad not found" error message. Do the files have to in particular folder. Shoud I be doing this from Root login.

I am starting to really dislike this open source crap. It is so wild and unregulated, and thus plain ineffective as deployed platform. Unless you got some really serious IT suppourt.

DavidRindner
I open a terminal in the folder where the bin files reside, type the name with and without the /. All I get is “no such file or directory” or 'commnad not found" error message. Do the files have to in particular folder. Shoud I be doing this from Root login.

Depending on what you are installing you may or may not need to be root.

If you do a “ls” do you see the file in the list? If not then you need to “cd” to the directory where it resides and then run the command. Forexample
cd /opt/hfs_6.634.2
./houdini

I am starting to really dislike this open source crap. It is so wild and unregulated, and thus plain ineffective as deployed platform. Unless you got some really serious IT suppourt.

On the contrary depending on what Linux distribution you choose it can be one of the most tame and regulated OSes that exist. (Slackware for example).

Why do you want to run Houdini on Linux instead of Windows? The only reason to use Linux is if you enjoy the platform and its toolset. If it prohibits you from doing what you want to do then you shouldn't use it. If you simply want to learn how to use Linux then you need to spend some time learning the basics before you do anything else.

http://www.linuxsurvival.com [linuxsurvival.com]

I am doing that. In terminal I LS and the bin file is there. Its name is GoogleEarthLinux.bin
So I type it in. And get an error message stating.
“bash: GoogleEarthLinux: command not found”
Tried it with and without .bin extension.
What would be the next thing to try.

Type in the following…. exactly

./GoogleEarthLinux.bin

Make sure you get the . in front of the /

Also make sure GoogleEarthLinux.bin has executable permissions.

You can check this by doing a “ls -l GoogleEarthLinux.bin”

It should show something like

-rwxr-xr-x 1 Administrator None 16M Jul 20 18:36 GoogleEarthLinux.bin

The -rwxr-xr-x is the important part.

This is very much not in the spirit of what this forum is for(technical help with SESI products).

Scan these links:

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW1.htm [linux.oneandoneis2.org]
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm [linux.oneandoneis2.org]

It helps explain why so many Windows users come to Linux, find out it doesn't work exactly like their OS, and immediately tirade that “Open Source sucks”. You simply lack experience in multiple platforms, that's all. Again, nothing wrong with that, but as Wolfwood says, if you don't need it, don't want it, don't like it and don't want to spend the time learning it, then don't!

Btw, if you are interested in learning, there's some good boards out there that will help - such as www.linuxforums.org . They're very newbie friendly, but I will tell you, like in *anything* technical, if you jump in bitching about how much it sucks compared to what you think it should be, you'll soon run out of patient helpers.

J.C.

This book was recommended to me by Mark Story a few years back when I was still in school and barely learned Linux. I still have this book and use it as a reference every now and then. I highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534391559/sr=8-1/qid=1155009768/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2160475-9199037?ie=UTF8 [amazon.com]



Oh and, there's www.vizyacky.com too!