Installing programs

I am using mint 19 and like it. I have been using Ubuntu and Mint for a couple of years and usually just download programs from the Soft ware manager. Now that I am reaching out more I got to other sites such as sorceforge but my problem is , how do I install programs that end in SSH or tar.gz we come from windows that you just run an exe and it works.
Could we have some teaching on this.
Would like to have an equalizer that will run on Mint 19 and a sound blaster card.
Thanks for listening

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The reason it doesn’t work always as easy as on Windows is because there is basically only 1 Windows. While we have hundreds of different GNU/Linux operating systems. If Windows had that many variations it would be equally as hard to install stuff. Or actually it would be even harder because there is a lot of backward compatability in Linux (2 days ago I ran a program from 1999 on Debian 10 and it worked) while you often can’t use programs at all that are made for Windows 7 or even 8 on Windows 10, which is ridiculous.
Therefore, usually a good publisher for the software you want to use puts in general instructions for Linux and almost every software has Ubuntu-specific instructions that are easy to follow. You should watch out for that when downloading external software.

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If you go here this will answer the tar.gz install :https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=65837 and here for SSH : https://www.computerbeginnersguides.com/blog/2018/07/06/install-openssh-server-on-linux-mint-19/ far easier to direct you here than go through the explanation - hope it helps

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Not quite true
Windows xp, 7, 8, 10, etc try to get a printer driver from one to work on another
If you follow that idea then the 2 you have asked for are like getting a xp to run on 10 not going to happen
But like is said most write for debian based systems so go for a deb or software centre to play safe
What I want is for Garmin and Tom Tom the main GPS which are written in Linux open source to offer a update that works on mint tech support says no call … hmm

How much do they try? In my personal experience the driver support was as equally backward-incompatible as other software. There are so many drivers that I had to “trick” with compatability modes, playing with .DDLs, etc. just to get them somehow working on Windows 10. The biggest annoyance ever was the Logitech G930 headset. The old driver for Windows 7 was working flawlessly while all new Windows 10 drivers for this device were an absolute catastrophe. In this case the developers even TRIED to update the driver to Windows 10 standards and it simply failed horribly because of the OS version.
Another huge annoyance is Windows Live. It is discontinued and therefore natively incompatible with Windows 10. So basically this means every time I buy a game from about 10 years ago, I can’t play it on my Windows machine even though the game was made specifically for Windows. This is utterly ridiculous.
In Linux there are many deprecated programs, but most of them are still available for use, if you really have to.

The software I recently used is from 1991 and was updated the last time in 1999. It is neither official software nor is it a .deb file. Yet, it works. Try that on Windows. The only thing that comes remotely close to this is playing old games through DOS Box on Windows.

You should extract the tar.gz file and there should be a README file mentioning the steps you have to follow.

Some times, there will be executable in it which you can double click on it and run it (same like some Windows program that run, not installed, directly from exe).

Most of the time, it will ask you to use command line and compile the software yourself. That’s a complicated process because you’ll have to deal with the dependencies manually. Removing the software installed this way is also a pain at times.

As a beginner, you should avoid source code installation.

More information: https://itsfoss.com/install-software-from-source-code/

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Thanks for all your replys, it is helpful

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Some files tar.gz, is only unpack with tar -vzxf filename .tar.gz
after you change for the folder create, and execute the binary file.
such “someprogram-bin”.However others tar.gz you must compile them
for use, and it is couple complex ( avoid them ). You can give preference
for files .deb, that you install with double click ( such Window$ ) :slight_smile: