What do I do to install packages that are tar or rpms?

[ap90033]

I want to install privoxy, can I install it in gentoo?

[rukhoven]

Sorry, I can't go in to the specifict of getting that program running on your Gentoo, but in general the following counts I think: you will have to compile it by yourself from the source code . RPM is not really an option as it is probably for another distro and the files will be in the wrong places. You'll have to untar the sourcecode and do al lot of reading from the readme files before you can go about compiling it yourself. It's not the easiest.... Since you are asking this question here, I think you can emphasize the "lot" before "reading"
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AMDXp 2000 per sis745 con 60 GB HD
......Is what I'd like to have.......

[Houdini]

A Quick HOWTO-Install-tgz:

Do NOT do this as root. Trust me.

Put the tar.gz (or tar.bz2, whatever) is a seperate download directory (~/downloads/, for instance). Again, trust Houdini, all will be made clear.

do "tar -xzvf <file>", without the quotes, and with the name of the file. Replace the z with a y (in -xzvf) if it's a tar.bz2 instead of a tar.gz. This should spew filenames at you (the files that are being unpacked).

If you care to know, that command line deconstructed is:
tar the Tape ARchive program. Ignore the name.
- the characters attached to this are options
x eXtract an archive
z gZip'ed file
y (not used above) file is in bzip2 form.
v Verbose, say what files are coming out.
f extract from File
<file> umm... the file to extract

Hopefully, the person who made that tarball put it in a seperate directory. If they did, that directory should be sitting in your download directory. If not, you have a mess to clean up Go into that directory.

do "./configure". This should take a minute or two, the program is analyzing your system for files it needs.

If nothing broke up there (and you can tell if it does), do "make". Watch all the compilation messages scroll by.

If nothing breaks there (again, you'd know), the program is ready to install. Do "su -c make install", give it your root password, and it installs.

Go down a directory (cd ..) and try out the program (type the name). If everything is good, delete the directory you made it in, and you're done.

Wasn't that easy? Well, some programs are more complex, but that'll get you through the basics. Read some man pages or something. Do ./configure --help to get options for many programs.
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