really dumb question on getting started; extracting archive
How do you unzip the .tar and .gz files prior to install? For most applications that I'm running on my unix based web server, my process is to unzip on my Windows XP box prior to uploading to the web server. I know basically nothing about unix except how to post files and write simple .cgi code. I'm wanting to install mailman in conjunction with a WordPress plug-in and am pretty much expecting that between WordPress and the WP mailman plug in I won't need to know very much about the unix stuff underneath. But the archive format has me stumped before I even get out the gate.
I searched the FAQ on "extract" and "unzip" and found nothing on point. I searched the archives for this mailing list and found 3 other people with the same question but none of the answers were helpful.
One person suggested http://www.gzip.org, but that web page states that the solution for unzipping on a windows machine is to use winzip:
"To extract .tar and .tar.gz files on Windows 9x/NT/2000/ME/XP use <http://www.sfsu.edu/ftp/win/utils/> PowerArchiver 6.1 (freeware) or <http://www.7-zip.org> 7-zip (freeware) or <http://www.winzip.com> Winzip (commercial)."
Winzip says the file format of the files downloaded from SourceForge isn't valid. Specifically the error when I try to extract mailman-2.1.10b1.tgz.gz is "invalid directory"
And when I try to extract mailman-2.1.10b1.tar I get "Error reading header after processing 0 entries"
Another respondent suggested the GNU installation manual , but those instructions go from this: 2.2 Create the installation directory
You are now ready to configure and install the Mailman software.
To this
SECTION0013100000000000000003.1 Run configure
Usually you can just cd to the directory you unpacked the Mailman source tarball into, and run configure with no arguments:
Without ever stopping to say how to unpack the file.
I'm sure it's obvious to those with passing familiarity with unix, but if its that easy it couldn't hurt to enumerate the steps could it?
Thanks, in advance!
Charles Marcus wrote:
As I said in my reply to the OP, if you're trying to install Mailman on *nix, don't unzip it on Windows.
In theory it should work, but it only complicates the problem of moving the unpacked tree to the *nix environment, and many Windows unzip applications will unzip recursively by default and this will break things for make.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Holmes, Deb wrote:
How do you unzip the .tar and .gz files prior to install?
In a command shell on your unix web server type
man gunzip
and
man tar
or
tar --help
for documentation.
Depending on your specific tar, you should be able to do
tar -xf mailman-2.1.10b1.tgz
or
gunzip -c mailman-2.1.10b1.tgz | tar -xf -
I suspect you'll find you need to know a lot more than you think.
It is not recommended to unzip/untar Mailman on Windows first. The tarball contains subordinate tarballs for the Python email library and the Japanese and Korean codecs. If these get expanded on Windows, Mailman's make will probably fail.
I searched the FAQ on "extract" and "unzip" and found nothing on point.
This is so fundamental that no one expects that someone without this much *nix knowledge would try to install Mailman.
As I said, don't unzip on Windows. Put the tarball on the *nix machine and unzip and untar it there.
The file on SourceForge is 2.1.10b1.tgz. Possibly your download process added an extranous .gz extention because of it's content-type, but it should be named 2.1.10b1.tgz, not 2.1.10b1.tgz.gz.
And when I try to extract mailman-2.1.10b1.tar I get "Error reading header after processing 0 entries"
And where did mailman-2.1.10b1.tar come from? The failed extract of 2.1.10b1.tgz.gz? I suspect it's empty.
It's a hurdle. If you can't get past that one, I think you'll have more issues later. It takes more than a "passing familiarity with unix" to install software - not just Mailman - any software.
That said, we will try to help if you ask, but we probably can't teach you *nix administration from the ground up.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Holmes, Deb wrote:
don't mess with the windoze system... just put the file in the directory on your *nix system that you want it unpacked in and:
$ tar -xf <filename>.tar
$ gunzip <filename>.gz
and for zipped tarballs (which I use a far bit):
$ tar -xzf <filename>.tar.gz
the man pages for tar and gunzip will explain all the switches, and there are a bunch, but you only need the ones shown to get what you want. I usually add the -v switch (for verbose) as I like to see what's happening.
snip<<<
-- Steve Lindemann __ Network Administrator //\\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Marmot Library Network, Inc. \\// against HTML/RTF email, url: http://www.marmot.org //\\ vCards & M$ attachments email: mailto:steve@marmot.org voice: +1.970.242.3331 ext 116 fax: +1.970.245.7854
Charles Marcus wrote:
As I said in my reply to the OP, if you're trying to install Mailman on *nix, don't unzip it on Windows.
In theory it should work, but it only complicates the problem of moving the unpacked tree to the *nix environment, and many Windows unzip applications will unzip recursively by default and this will break things for make.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Holmes, Deb wrote:
How do you unzip the .tar and .gz files prior to install?
In a command shell on your unix web server type
man gunzip
and
man tar
or
tar --help
for documentation.
Depending on your specific tar, you should be able to do
tar -xf mailman-2.1.10b1.tgz
or
gunzip -c mailman-2.1.10b1.tgz | tar -xf -
I suspect you'll find you need to know a lot more than you think.
It is not recommended to unzip/untar Mailman on Windows first. The tarball contains subordinate tarballs for the Python email library and the Japanese and Korean codecs. If these get expanded on Windows, Mailman's make will probably fail.
I searched the FAQ on "extract" and "unzip" and found nothing on point.
This is so fundamental that no one expects that someone without this much *nix knowledge would try to install Mailman.
As I said, don't unzip on Windows. Put the tarball on the *nix machine and unzip and untar it there.
The file on SourceForge is 2.1.10b1.tgz. Possibly your download process added an extranous .gz extention because of it's content-type, but it should be named 2.1.10b1.tgz, not 2.1.10b1.tgz.gz.
And when I try to extract mailman-2.1.10b1.tar I get "Error reading header after processing 0 entries"
And where did mailman-2.1.10b1.tar come from? The failed extract of 2.1.10b1.tgz.gz? I suspect it's empty.
It's a hurdle. If you can't get past that one, I think you'll have more issues later. It takes more than a "passing familiarity with unix" to install software - not just Mailman - any software.
That said, we will try to help if you ask, but we probably can't teach you *nix administration from the ground up.
-- Mark Sapiro <mark@msapiro.net> The highway is for gamblers, San Francisco Bay Area, California better use your sense - B. Dylan
Holmes, Deb wrote:
don't mess with the windoze system... just put the file in the directory on your *nix system that you want it unpacked in and:
$ tar -xf <filename>.tar
$ gunzip <filename>.gz
and for zipped tarballs (which I use a far bit):
$ tar -xzf <filename>.tar.gz
the man pages for tar and gunzip will explain all the switches, and there are a bunch, but you only need the ones shown to get what you want. I usually add the -v switch (for verbose) as I like to see what's happening.
snip<<<
-- Steve Lindemann __ Network Administrator //\\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Marmot Library Network, Inc. \\// against HTML/RTF email, url: http://www.marmot.org //\\ vCards & M$ attachments email: mailto:steve@marmot.org voice: +1.970.242.3331 ext 116 fax: +1.970.245.7854
participants (4)
-
Charles Marcus -
Holmes, Deb -
Mark Sapiro -
Steve Lindemann