MikTex compilation error

Greetings from Mexico City!

I am newish in the Linux world (Ubuntu 9.10).

I've been trying to install MikTex without success. The .deb files inevitably lead to an error (system feedback rather uninformative). I next tried to compile the source code I downloaded from the MikTex web page. I untarred it and ran the following commands with no errors:

Code:

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cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"
make
sudo make install
sudo initexmf --admin --configure

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But when I get to the next command:

Code:

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sudo mpm --admin --update-db

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the machine responds with a puzzling

Code:

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mpm: LZMA decoder error.

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Forum threads offer little information on this.

I will be grateful for clues...

Gracias!

--Eric