Choosing File Formats

Not all software available on the Internet can run on your machine. Most people installing their own systems have Intel processors. When you are looking at files to download it is quite likely that you will see files like the following:

package.tar.gz
package.tgz
package.bz2
package.tbz2
package.zip
package.rpm
package.i386.rpm
package.SPARC.rpm
package.Z
package.tar
package.c
package.bin

Okay, there are a lot of file types. Usually files that end with .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .Z, and .bz2 are source code. This is not always the case, but often it is. Files with the .zip extension are usually compiled Windows files and usually are not easy to use. The .rpm extension stands for Red Hat Package Manager and these require root to install. The .c extension usually means that the file is C source code. If you are on a machine with an Intel processor you probably want to look for packages with i386, i586, or i686 in the name. These packages probably have compiled Intel code. Words like SPARC or Alpha usually mean that the package is already compiled on that specific processor chip and will not run on the Intel processor. Here is the list of files again with a command to start the extraction:

package.tar.gz       tar xvfz package.tar.gz (Might need to compile)
package.tgz          tar xvfz package.tgz (Might need to compile)
package.bz2          bunzip2 package.bz2 (Might need to compile)
package.tbz2         bunzip2 package.tbz2; tar xvf package.tar (Might need to compile)
package.zip          unzip package.zip
package.rpm          rpm -i package.rpm
package.i386.rpm     rpm -i package.i386.rpm
package.SPARC.rpm    (Not for Intel Processor)
package.Z            uncompress package.Z (Might need to compile)
package.tar          tar xvf package.tar (Might need to compile)
package.c            gcc package.c -o package
package.bin          sh package.bin (or ./package.bin)