Hello fellow GD''net''ers. Heh. I''m trying to start learning Linux on PhatLinux. It''s pretty...hard. Maybe it''s just my distro. But anyway. I''m having a very hard time getting started because I can''t get online ''cos I have a WinModem. I don''t really get the point of compiling programs when you get them. And ... I don''t know how to do it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. BTW-> I think I''m going to get Mandrake 8.1 soon. --SuperRoy //#define IRONY -1

http://www.linmodems.org

That should tell you how to use Winmodems in Linux.

rm -rf /bin/laden

I have a WinModem...With No Drivers or Support for Linux....ever.

Do you have another PC? If you have another one with Windows, just get the AnalogX proxy server, and use that to access the Internet from Linux. That''s what I have to do at this moment.

rm -rf /bin/laden

There are several reasons why you have to compile from source. The first is that programs you compile yourself, for the specific machine sitting in front of you are often leaner and faster because you don''t compile in options that you don''t need, and the compiler can use things specific to your hardware to make faster code. You also have the option of creating larger programs that are faster or slower programs that are smaller. You can also set some or all of your libraries a program uses to be static instead of the usual default of shared.

The second reason is that the most popular license used to distribute Open Source software is the GPL, and distributing the source and having you compile it yourself is the surest way to ensure that the source can get to you.

There''s also the benefit of having the headers on your machine after you''ve compiled a library, so if you compile from source, you automatically get the ability to compile programs based on that source.(instead of having to install those troublesome -devel packages)

to compile a program, you usually have to have the -devel packages for the libraries that your program depends on, then cd into the directory where your program''s source is located, and type:
./configure
make
make install

You could also do ./configure && make && make install
this has the benefit of not requiring that you sit there, but the disadvantage of making any errors during compile difficult to track down(for example, if a required program is not found during configure, then you try to compile without it).

Most distros are hard. Mandrake is reputed to be the best for user-friendliness.