Trouble installing abiword-2.4.1.x86.package

[imerc23]

Dear Puppy helpers,

I'm a newbie whose having a lot of trouble understanding how to install new programs into Puppy.

I recently tried downloading the latest AbiWord, and I assumed that since AbiWord is already on Puppy, all of the dependency files would be there and it should be easy to do the installation. So I went to this page:
http://www.abisource.com/download/

and the instructions seemed easy:
download the file abiword-2.4.1.x86.package (done)
open the properties dialog box (done)
change it to be an executable file (done)
delete the existing Abiword (done)
run the file to install Abiword 2.4.5 (can't do)

So, in my Home folder I now have abiword-2.4.1.x86.package and it has the "gear" icon to show that it is executable, but when I try to "double click" it, nothing happens.

Can any Puppy expert tell me what I did wrong?

Thanks so much.

I'm running Puppy 2.01, with a LiveCD

[MU]

No, they use a special technique with heavy dependencies.

Latest Abiword for Puppy currently is 2.4.4

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... ht=abiword

I might compile 2.4.5 in the next days.

Mark

[imerc23]

Mark, thanks for replying so quickly.

Actually, my interest here is broader that just the matter of which version of AbiWord I use.

What I'd like to undertand better is, when you go to a website and they offer a program which they say will "run on linux" how can you know whether it will run on your particular OS?

Coming from the Windows world I find this confusing. For instance, the AbiWord site says that their Windows version requires Win95b or later, so it's elementary-- I can be reasonably confident that if my PC has Win98 or XP or whatever, then their program should install and run and that any necessary dll files will be packaged in their "setup.exe" file.

But I'm starting to learn that with linux "it ain't so simple".

Nevertheless, it's a subject I'd like to know about.

So, how does a linux User know whether a particular linux program will or won't run on his version of linux? (apart from "trial & error", or apart from asking someone on a support forum such as this?).

And in a case such as with the Abiword package that I downloaded -- but it didn't install -- how does the linux user figure out what went wrong and why it didn't work and what it needs?

I don't mean to bog you down in giving me a lengthy reply, but if there is some reading material that you can send me the links to, or other forum posts I should be studying, that would be great because I'd like to read and understand this issue better.

Thanks very much for all your help to me and other Puppy users.

[MU]

In general, it is good to start a program in the consolewindow, as you can see errormessages there.
Right-click in Rox -> xterm here.
Then type
./program

where "program" is the real name of what you want to run.
The ./ in the beginning is important.
Sometimes you must make it executable first:
chmod 755 program

I think the Abiword-installer needs some other versions of some helperprograms, you will get errors about "tail" in the console.

I made a dotpup once of such helpers for autopackage (Abiwords installation system), but cannot guarantee they still work.
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=7918

In case of Abiword, I did not use the installer, but downloaded the sourcecode, and compiled it myself.
This takes some minutes, but is usually the most reliable way.
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Compiling

The problem in Linux is, that there are several concurring installers, and they are partially incompatile.
In Puppy, we have made good experiences with files from Debian and slackware-linux.
We use our own installersystem anyway, as we wanted to offer some features that we missed on other systems.
This is a ongoing process, but we hope to make installation as easy as possible like this.

Mark

[imerc23]

Mark that was a helpful instruction. I used the terminal this time, and as you'd warned me it still didn't run, but now I'm now seeing the error messages.

Thanks for your help.

Jim

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# ./abiword-2.4.5.x86.package
tail: invalid option -- -
BusyBox v1.01 (2006.01.16-23:59+0000) multi-call binary

Usage: tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Print last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output.
With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the
file name. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Options:
        -c N[kbm]       output the last N bytes
        -n N[kbm]       print last N lines instead of last 10
        -f              output data as the file grows
        -q              never output headers giving file names
        -s SEC          wait SEC seconds between reads with -f
        -v              always output headers giving file names

If the first character of N (bytes or lines) is a '+', output begins with 
the Nth item from the start of each file, otherwise, print the last N items
in the file. N bytes may be suffixed by k (x1024), b (x512), or m (1024^2).

Verifing archive integrity failed
Error in MD5 sums: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e is different from 9be7a56ed3          d7b5104f6d83c5e1162778
sh-3.00#