Tar conversion

Forum: myDSL Extensions (deprecated)
Topic: Tar conversion
started by: PowR_TocH

Posted by PowR_TocH on Dec. 31 2004,08:34

Can anyone tell me how to convert a .tar file downloaded from other page into a myDSL ext.?I've downloaded an internet comunicator but it won't load in DSL(live CD version).Please help.

Posted by clacker on Dec. 31 2004,13:31

PowR_TocH, that depends on what the tar file you have contains. Is it source code that needs to be compiled, or an executable with libraries? If you downloaded it as a tar fille, try putting it into your home directory, the in a bash shell type

tar-xvf yourfilename.tar
or
tar-zxvf yourfilename.tar.gz

depending on the extension. Look at the directory it creates, then cd to that directory. Now see if there is a README file and read it to see what you need to do.

Posted by clacker on Dec. 31 2004,16:21

The file he was try to compile was < GNU Gadu >. I tried to compile it but I was unable to. I had to load the gcc1.dsl and apt-get the following packages:

libtool
automake
libglib2.0-dev
libtlen1-dev
loudmouth1-dev
libgtk2.0-dev
libgtkspell-dev

I got an error during the configuration about gtkspell that was beyond me.

Posted by softgun on Jan. 04 2005,15:37

Quote (clacker @ Dec. 31 2004,08:31)

How does this help us? I too want to change these to make them into DSL extensions. There are some programs which are small and useful. One is fluxconf a program to change the keybindings and menus in Fluxbox. Then there is a program called wmsetbg which is useful to set a background to fluxbox.

There does not seem to be a way to do this in DSL.

Am I wrong?

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 04 2005,17:23

OK,

First, before trying to install your internet communicator tar file, please install one of the *.dsl extensions. It doesn't matter the name of the extension as long at it ends with *.dsl

For example, the ace of penguins dsl extension is small. Download it and install it.

This will create a writeable file system in your RAMDISK.

Then go ahead and try to install your internet communicator and see if it works.

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 04 2005,17:53

Quote

Most applications in *.tar format are not compiled, but merely archives containing source code.
If the archive you've downloaded is a source tarball, you can't directly convert it to a DSL extension. The source first needs to be successfully compiled into an executable application, and then it can be put into an extension, including any dependencies which aren't present in DSL.
Straight conversion to a DSL extension can be accomplished only by using precompiled binaries such as applications in *.deb format.

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 05 2005,04:45

This is correct.

There are few applications that are distributed in *.tar.gz archives that are in binary format. The most common ones are slackware packages.

Usually, a tar archive of precompiled binaries will mention the computer architecture that the program is compiled for. For example: *.i386.tar.gz could contain a precompiled program that is compiled to run on an Intel 386 processor architecture (also includes, 486, Pentium, Celeron, Athlon, Duron, etc).

Also, a good hint is to see if the archive contains files that are placed in a "bin" directory like /bin or /usr/bin

You can tell this by typing:

tar -ztvf filename.tar.gz | more

and it will display the list of files that are contained in the archive.

Good Luck.

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 05 2005,04:56

Another exception is Slackware packages (usually with a .tgz extension), which are very similar to DSL packages...the main difference is Slack packages include a script used to copy the files and possibly run ldconfig afterward (or at least that's what I recall...it's been a while since I've used Slackware).

You could probably just do 'sudo mkwriteable' to open up the additional directories without needing to install a dsl, but I can't say from experience.