[gps-users] Difficulties to install GPS on Linux

[Ludovic Brenta]

Marc Colinet <m.colinet@9online.fr> writes:

> I have just purchased Linux Mandrake 9.2 to run GPS on it since I have
> not XP. I am not used to Linux and I try to install GPS.
> 
> I would like to install GPS in /usr, the directory where is GNAT. With
> the normal login, "doinstall" can be run but tells me that it can't be
> possible to write in /usr, that I have to check if it is not necessary
> to be root to perform the installation in /usr.
> With the login root, I can't run doinstall this time, Linux tells me
> that it is not a command file!
> 
> Is there anybody that can tell me how to run "doinstall" and install
> GPS in /usr ?
> 
> Thanks ahead and best regards.
> Marc.

When you are logged in as root, try ./doinstall instead of doinstall
(i.e. specify the path to the `doinstall' script explicitly).

In Windows, the PATH always contains the current directory, but in
Unix or GNU/Linux, it does not.  This is for security reasons.

However, I would advise against installing into /usr.  This directory
should be reserved for packages that are installed through the package
management system (i.e. on Mandrake, RPM).  By convention, any
programs not packaged for your distribution should go into either
/usr/local or /opt.  You still need to be root for this, so the above
advice applies.

When I started using GNU/Linux, I found the "Installation and Getting
Started Guide", by Matt Welsh and others, very useful.  You can find
it online at The Linux Documentation Project:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/gs/gs.html.  You can also purchase a hard copy
of it as "Running Linux" (O'Reilly and Associates).

HTH

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.