Now, I am not one of those that finds linux software installation an arcane and difficult path. However, I use mandrake (mandriva) whose urpmi tool (if setup with the correct source repositories) is usually enough for the software I’m looking for. Anything else is usually easy to either recompile from a source rpm or compile from source with a couple of fairly easy steps. That much said, those two steps do take you to the command line and for many people that means you may as well be using 0’s and 1’s to write the binary code yourself….