Installing software from binaries
From Mandrivausers Wiki
There are two common formats for installing binaries, both types of compressed tar files. These formats do not require compilation, but do not benefit from the advantages of the standard package management systems of Mandriva. If possible, it is recommended to install applications using RPMs instead of binaries.
[edit] .tar.gz Binary Installation
Some software packages, with realplayer as an example, distribute their binaries in a .tar.gz and not source code, these are much easier to install, first you extract the contents of the tar.gz and then run the binary like so:
tar -xzvf /home/bob/compressedfile.tar.gz ./nameofbinary
As you can see, you precede the name of the binary with './'
NOTE: Sometimes, if you can't use "./nameofbinary", you will need to make the file executable, you do this like so:
chmod +x nameofbinary
[edit] .tar.bz2 Binary Installation
Bzip2 files use a newer and much better compression algorithm than gzip (.gz) and are just as simple to use.
You uncompress them like this (as an example):
tar -xjvf /home/bob/compressedfile.tar.bz2
And you can follow the same instructions as for .tar.gz's for installing/compiling the software.
