Basic Yellow Dog 3.0 questions

[Mr. Bob]

Hey all, i've just installed Yellow Dog 3.0 and i have a few basic questions about it.

First of all, how do you extract tar.gz files? i've ransacked google and all it's been of no use. Is there a terminal command i need to input or is there an app that does it (sort of like stuffit expander).

Secondly, is there an "automatic updates" kind of thing for YDL? i've tried "apt-get update" and it says it's downloading things, but it never really seems to do anything after that.

also, the reason i have ydl 3.0 instead of 4.0 is that 3.0 is free, and 4.0 is not...and money is not one of my strong-points right now.

any help would be greatly appreciated :)

[kc0arf]

Hello,

To answer your questions:

.tar.gz files: These are tape archive files (tar) that are compressed using gzip (gz). I prefer doing all of this in the command line, and you probably should get invovled and learn how too! .tar.gz is a lot like your PC .zip files, or your Mac's .sit files. They are a collection of files that are compressed together.

1) Open a terminal window.
2) Make a directory for the file [mkdir dirname].  Some .tars form their own directory, others extract right to the root where you started, making things messy.
3) Copy the file into the directory you made [cp file.tar.gz dirname/.]
4) CD into the directory [cd dirname]
5) Unzip the file [gzip -d *.gz]
6) Untar the file [tar -xvf *.tar]

TO learn more about these commands, look at their man pages [man gzip] [man tar].

Brief tutorial:

tar -xvf filename.tar --> Extracts the tar file, and you see what is going on

tar -cvf /OtherDir/filename.tar * --> takes the files in the current directory, and subdirs, and archives them to the filename somewhere else. When making tars, make them OUTSIDE of the directory you are preparing.

gzip filename.tar ---> compresses filename.tar into filename.tar.gz

You may also see .tgz format... that is exactly like .tar.gz

There is a way to extract with just using tar... I think it might be tar -xvzf *.gz, but not sure. I always do it the manual 2 step way by habit.

YDL Updates... I think they had a service, but have not run it in quite some time. I need to seriously get my YDL back up and running. I am currently in RedHat, which YDL is based on, and they are very similar.

Also, 4.0 should be released free at some point. DO not worry too much about running yesterday's linux. COncepts are similar. There are concerns when you run LAST YEARS linux though.

Christian

[alc6379]

When you're updating, you first run apt-get update, and then you run apt-get dist-upgrade to update your system. Running the update only tells the apt tools what packages are available, while the dist-upgrade part upgrades the system and the packages using those most updated packages the system now knows about.

I thought that Yellowdog had yum, which worked like apt? All the well, I guess-- whatever works for you.

Also, like kc0arf said, tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz will do it for you, and the two step method works as well. There are tons of ways you could do it, there's even

gzip -dc filename.tar.gz | tar -xvf -

if you wanted to give your fingers a workout ;)

[Mr. Bob]

ah great thank you :cool:

actually i was a 'tard and managed to completely screw up the settings, so i'm in the process of re-installing it, but that will be a big help, so again thank you. :mrgreen: