Hi Rudolph,
Sorry for the late reply, was busy at work yesterday. Wow, your explanations are so incredibly clear and you explain things so easily, thank you! It really helps when I know NOTHING about Linux. I'm going to try what you said below and see if that helps and then will let you know. So thanks once again.
Fatima
-----Original Message----- From: Rudolph Pienaar [mailto:rudolph@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu] Sent: 25 August 2009 16:01 To: Ahmed, F, Me fahmed@sun.ac.za Cc: Nick Schmansky; Freesurfer Mailing List Subject: Re: [Freesurfer] installing on ubuntu
Hi Fatima --
Ahmed, F, Me fahmed@sun.ac.za wrote:
cd /usr/local tar xzvf freesurfer-Linux-<platform>-<release>-full.tar.gz
and I got the following error:
tar: freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar: Cannot
open: No such file or directory
That error in fact does make sense. The 'tar' command is trying to unpack the archive, but it is saying that it can't find the archive file. That most likely is because the archive file is *not* in the /usr/local folder (or directory).
I'm guessing that you downloaded the archive to your Desktop -- this is usually the case if you use 'firefox' to download. Assuming that to be the case, the *full* path to the archive is:
/home/fatima/Desktop/freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar
(assuming that your user name on your computer is 'fatima'). Sometimes 'firefox' might download to your 'Downloads' folder:
/home/fatima/Downloads/freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar
I'm going to assume the archive is on your Desktop since this is the most common. Now, in order to install, you need to make sure about two things:
1. That you properly specify the archive. 2. That you have permissions to unpack the archive.
When you login, you have permission to read/write files and folders only in your "home" folder, i.e. /home/fatima -- anywhere "outside" this, and you will probably need administrator permission. This administrator is typically called 'root' on Linux/Mac/Unix systems.
On a CentOS box, when you want to install, you should change your user to 'root'. This means typing:
$>su
The prompt will ask you for a password. This is the 'root' password and was setup by whomever setup your computer. This password is probably not the same as your, i.e. 'fatima', password. When you have done that, you will notice that the prompt has changed slightly:
#>
i.e., the '$' is now '#', signifying that you are now 'root'.
Now, assuming that the freesurfer archive is still in your (i.e. 'fatima's) Desktop, you should try:
$>su Password: <type root password> #>cd /usr/local #>tar xzvf /home/fatima/Desktop/freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar
and you should hopefully be all set. By the way, you don't need to type every single character in the name. Just type the first one or two and then press <tab>. The shell will fill in the rest as far as it can. So when you start typing '/home/fa' press <tab> and it will automatically fill out '/home/fatima'. Then continue typing '/Des' and press <tab> -- you will see '/home/fatima/Desktop'. Now continue and type '/free' and press <tab> then the whole 'freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar' will automatically be completed.
On Ubuntu, it's pretty much the same as CentOS, but we use 'sudo' instead of 'su', and you can use your password and not the 'root' password:
$>sudo bash Password: <type YOUR password> #>cd /usr/local #>tar xzvf /home/fatima/Desktop/freesurfer-Linux-centos4-stable-pub-v4.3.1-full.tar
in both cases, when you're done unpacking, simply type: 'exit' so that you are no longer the 'root' user and return to being 'fatima'.
HTH -=R