Just get me through this...

I there...

Perhaps some people know that I'm not fond of Linux (read I hate it even more than windows, and THAT is really saying something), but I think it would still be nice if I can make apart from Windows and Mac, also make a Linux build of my programs, games, or whatever....

But I'm at a total loss on this.

Let me start to say, that I have a plug-and-play partable harddisk. I always use that to store my projects, in order to easily switch between Mac and Windows, both platforms are able to read that thing, so no problem there.

As far as my information goes Linux should be able to read that thing as well, but I'm really out of luck when it comes to Linux. For starters, I don't even know how to access that damn thing from Linux. Since as well Mac as Linux are both UNIX based I was thinking that Linux would access that thing the same as the Mac does. (Having a /Volumes folder in which that device is given up as a folder), but it's very clear that Linux does NOT work that way.

First of all, I've a BlitzMax download for Linux on my portable harddisk, and I need to install it. How am I gonna do that?

If somebody can tell me how to access that thing from Linux I'd be very happy.

(Since my Linux does not operate very well, I think my computer is too old for such a modern Linux version, I'll only use it to make a Linux build, but because of this problem, it was not possible).

Oh yeah, and what are Linux builds called. I mean, Windows has .exe, Mac has .app, what does Linux have?

No. Under Linux you have to mount it. Depending on which Linux distro you have, it may work automagically (using automount) and you should be able to find it in /auto/. If not you'll have to mount it manually.

Depends. Copy it somewhere reasonable /home/username/ or /usr/local/bin/ for instance, and then type "gunzip BlitzMaxSetup112.tar.gz | tar -xvf -" (withuot the double quotes). If you're running some graphical shell you can just click on the Icon for the tar.gz file, and copy the BlitzMAX112 folder somewhere you like.

Binaries or Executables. Linux uses a filesystem flag, rather than a filename extension to determine whether something (binary, script, whatever) is executable, and who has permissions to do so.

Newer Linux distros can automount portable hard drives without fuss. There are some distros catered to less powerful PCs, so I recommend you have a look around for something lightweight.

In your case sticking with some old distro, you're going to have to "tail /var/log/messages" or "dmesg" to find out where the drive is attached upon connection, then mount it. You will find loads of information on this with a simple Google search, so I'm not going to waste time going through it.

Linux has files flagged as executable. File extensions aren't necessary.

On the builds. Lemme see if I get it straight.
If I make a Linux build of say "HelloWorld.bmx" the build will just be "HelloWorld" but with an attribute of flag that it's an executable. Right.

Oh, and the Linux version I have is RedHat 9 (Graphical version)

And that also brings me to another question.
How can I create Linux downloads best?

I mean in Windows .zip is most common, on the Mac it's .dmg.
What is most common for Linux and how to create that?

On the mounting stuff. I'll try to sort that out tomorrow.
Thank you all very much for your time.

I doubt RedHat9 even has adequate USB support to talk to that drive so yes, upgrade to Ubuntu or Fedora first.

Zip files will work fine on all modern Linux distros.

On newer distros support for USB hardware is quite good. For example, on my Kubuntu PC I just plug in my iPod or other storage device and an icon appears on the desktop. Under Ubuntu, you access most storage devices via the /media folder (/media/ipod or /media/cdrom0)

Two questions on that.
I - How to get those versions
II - Will that version work adequate enough on a computer bought around the year 2000 to make a Linux build of BMax programs?


I see... There's a zipper in Linux itself? (Since I've for the rest only Windows based zippers).

You can download Ubuntu from www.ubuntulinux.org . Kubuntu (which is like Ubuntu, except that it uses the KDE desktop instead of GNOME) can be downloaded from www.kubuntu.org



No, the "zipper" is not part of Linux, but popular desktop environments (Linux equivalent of Windows Explorer) provide compression tools. Under KDE, you have Ark, and I'm not sure what GNOME provides.

In Kubuntu, you can compress the contents of a folder by right-clicking on that folder in Konqueror (the file browser) and selecting Compress > Compress As > (name).zip