Chapter 12: Installing Software Can Be Tricky

Overview

In This Chapter

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  Where does software come from (the software stork)?

  
  


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  Where to put software

  
  


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  Writing shell scripts, or files full of commands

  
  


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  Writing aliases for your favorite commands

  
  


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  Grabbing software from the Internet

  
  


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  Uncompressing, uudecoding, and otherwise fooling with files that contain programs

  
  

If you are a Windows or Macintosh user, you probably are thinking: “I can install new programs. What’s the big deal? I just stick in a disk or a CD- ROM and type INSTALL, right?” No. In UNIX, it’s not that simple, of course. You face issues of paths, permissions, and other technical-type stuff we have been protecting you from.

On the other hand, we’re not about to train you to be a system programmer. Every user has a few favorite programs, and you wear out your welcome quickly if you go off to your local wizard every time you want to use a new program. Although installing new UNIX programs is much trickier than installing PC or Mac programs, in many cases you can do it yourself.