How do I install something?

[chromesafari]

I would like to install a sound theme, but I do not know how. I see a bunch on ubuntu-art.org, but I do not know anything about .tar files or .sh files. I would also like to know how to get a universal IM program like Pidgin on my computer. Thanks

[LaRoza]

I would like to install a sound theme, but I do not know how. I see a bunch on ubuntu-art.org, but I do not know anything about .tar files or .sh files. I would also like to know how to get a universal IM program like Pidgin on my computer. Thanks

On Ubuntu, pidgin is already installed.

For installing things, try to use .deb (Debian Packages) that are meant for Ubuntu. Use the repositories or places like http://www.getdeb.net/.

A .tar file is just an archive (not compressed). Often, a .tar will be compressed with something like gzip, and be called a "tarball", usually with the extension .tar.gz

You can just right click to extract in most file managers. If not, do "man tar" in the terminal, and you'll get the command line version of how to do it, but I doubt you'll need this.

When you get things distributed in a tarball, untarring it and reading the instructions are the best bet. Find a "readme" or something in it.

[billgoldberg]

See my costumization guide, link in signature.

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Pidgin is preinstalled on Ubuntu.

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tar.gz is a archive, just like rar or zip is.

.sh are scripts.

In a terminal use


sh pathtoscript