How can I install software in Linux with no yum and no wget?

Question

I'm a newbie to Linux (that mainly uses Windows and Mac OS X) needing some advice. I was trying to install git on a Linux machine today, and encountered some problems:

1. Not knowing the version of the installed OS, I've opened the /proc/version file which said:

    Linux version 2.6.9-42.0.2.ELsmp ([email protected]) 
    (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-3)) #1 SMP Thu Aug 17 17:57:31 
    EDT 2006
   

2. Then, as written in the git documents (http://git-scm.com/download/linux), I assumed I could use the yum install git command for Fedora, but got the following result.

    [root@myserver ~]# yum install git
    -bash: yum: command not found
   

3. So I tried installing yum using wget, but wasn't so lucky.

    [root@myserver ~]# wget http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/download/2.0/yum-2.0.7.tar.gz
    -bash: wget: command not found
   

4. I googled and found this page and this page, so tried installing yum with rpm, but only got a result full of question marks. (Possibly an encoding problem, hmm...)

    [root@myserver ~]# rpm -Uvh http://www.eomy.net/linux/install-yum-x86_64/wget-1.10.2-0.40E.x86_64.rpm
    http://www.eomy.net/linux/install-yum-x86_64/wget-1.10.2-0.40E.x86_64.rpm(??)?? ?????ϴ
                                                                                  ?: /var/tmp/rpm-xfer.TbuAOu: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 443e1821
    ?غ?..                  ########################################### [100%]
    wget-1.10.2-0.40E Ű????̹??ġ?Ǿ?ֽ??ϴ
                                            wget-1.10.2-0.40E???? ??ġ?Ǵ/usr/bin/wget ?? wget-1.10.2-0.40E Ű????ϰ? ???ϴ
                                                                                                                            wget-1.10.2-0.40E???? ??ġ?Ǵ/usr/share/man/man1/wget.1.gz ?? wget-1.10.2-0.40E Ű????ϰ? ???ϴ
                                             [root@myserver ~]# 
   

5. Finally, when I typed rpm --version in the terminal, I got the below results.

    [root@myserver ~]# rpm --version
    RPM ???? - 4.3.3
   

I would like to know what I can do or possibly try now. Is it not possible to wget or yum anything in my situation? Or is there any magical tool like homebrew (Link) that I can use?

As jhcaiced has mentioned in his comments, I've added the output of some more files:

• vi /etc/issue

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
    Kernel \r on an \m
  

• vi /etc/redhat-release (no file named /etc/release)

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
  

• /etc/version and /etc/release-version do not exist.

Plus, no apt-get and no yast in the system. The 32 bit packages didn't work either.

Solution

Do you have links or curl? Do you have ssh? Then you have scp, you can transfer for example a tar.gz source file to it and see if you have make and gcc, and build/compile the package on the machine, then set the prefix to somewhere under your home folder and install the package there. You could download and install pacman - then you have a packet manager!

To check the version of the distro usually its in /etc/release or /etc/version or /etc/release-version

But it seems to be an old RedHat machine, so you probably only have rpm. So then use scp to transfer a .rpm package to it (which sutis the redhat version) and install it with rpm -U something. Probably look into scp'ing in a wget .rpm package, after that the rpm should work better.

Comments

[Admin]

You don't have apt-get either, I take it?

[Jacob Tomlinson]

Have a look at linuxers.org/howto/…

[Admin]

How did you decide on downloading the x86_64 version of the packages? Might it not be the case that you're running a 32 bit system and that you should use those packages instead?

[Linuxios]

Also, you have to remember that Linux has many different package managers. Fedora and RHEL use rpm, others use yum, and then all Debian based distros use apt-get.

[jhcaiced]

Can you publish the output of /etc/issue, /etc/release, /etc/version, /etc/release-version ? (may be not all of them exist). This provides information about what linux distribution is installed on this particular machine an would help to find an answer to your issue.

[poz2k4444]

also you can try with yast, it dependes on the distro you are using

[Jjames]

There's something extremely odd...how are you connecting to that server? Where does that server come from? Is it an old machine or something new? Also, man rpm tells me that the switch for installing is -i, not -U...rpm -i PACKAGE.

[e9t]

@Bobby The server is one at my department at school. The former administrator quit his job, and I was asked to maintain the server until a new admin comes. The thing is, I'm not close with Linux... at all. The machine it self is very old, and is supposed to be replaced with a new one at the end of the year, but meanwhile I'm stuck with this oldie. Thanks for the notice on rpm, Bobby.

[e9t]

Yes, I have curl, ssh and scp. Guess I'd better try getting source codes and makeing things... thanks for your advice :)