Okay so I jinxed myself with that last post, the command line prompt quickly crept up on me. I’m just trying to install Limewire and it’s driving me crazy.
First I downloaded the .rpm package, which required installing Alien to convert it to a .deb package. I was able to handle that using Synaptic Package Manager. Then I installed the .deb package using the terminal (alien -i LimeWireLinux.rpm) and it appeared to install, it’s showing up on my Applications list under Internet programs. But when I click on it, absolutely nothing happens.
I also tried to download the .zip version that’s available, but then I wasn’t sure what to do with that once I had the regular folder extracted. I found a READ ME file that had me messing with Java, it said my JRE was too old so I went to java.com to get the latest one. I thought I had that installed properly but it’s still not working. Aggh! So annoyed right now. I just want LimeWire!
This is where the whole “Linux for human beings” line fails. I thought the whole idea behind Ubuntu was to make it as usable as Windows, but right now it’s far from it (for me.) And I just know if I were to go to one of the Ubuntu Support sites and ask about how to do this I would get some complicated answer that would just make me feel stupid. I’m not a programmer, I don’t think like one, and none of the Linux support geeks can ever seem to grasp that.
Maybe I should just be happy that I got Ubuntu installed this weekend and leave it at that. I have managed to finally understand what GNOME and Debian all mean in the context of Ubuntu. The terms had me confused at first, it’s hard going from an OS like Windows where the name Windows includes the OS, kernal, GUI, etc. to an open source collaboration like Ubuntu where each component of the OS has its own name and background groups. And all the familiar terms have new names, like recognizing “package” instead of “software”, or .tar and .deb instead of .zip. I’m learning a new language, and it sucks. But that’s what I signed up for when I wiped out my HD and said goodbye to Microsoft, so I’ll just have to deal with it and learn!
I have to say, I think you are doing pretty well. If it makes you feel any better, it took until my fourth distribution (Ubuntu, SuSE, Debian, and finally CentOS) until I found one that I could sucessfully compile and install the kernel mod (driver) for the RAID controller on my new server.
I think the Linux experience has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years. It’s still not quite all the way there, but it will likely never be quite as simple as Windows, and that’s the tradeoff I think has to be made between capability/security and ease-of-use.
You’ve hit on what keeps my Windows partition hanging around. Unless a .deb package exists for what I want to do (i.e. log in to TAMU’s VPN server), it is exteremely difficult to accomplish seemingly modest tasks. Such is the joy of linux.
Additionally, in case you haven’t stumbled across it yet, the gtk-gnutella package appears to act as a limewire client (although I’ve not tried it). Good luck!