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A textbook I'm using came with a CD containing a few supplementary applications. To my pleasant surprise, it appears to include an installer for Linux.

The readme file on the CD provides the following installation instructions:

PC: Linux

  1. Double-click on the folder 'LINUX'
  2. Double-click on the file 'INSTALL.BIN'
  3. Follow instructions on screen.

But doing this just produces the following error message:

Could not display "/media/BDH DE/linux/install.bin". The file is of an unknown type

Attempting to run the installer via the command line results in a permissions error:

ak@aux:~$ ls /media/BDH\ DE/
linux  os x  readme.txt  windows xp  windows xp - no java
ak@aux:~$ ls -l /media/BDH\ DE/linux/
total 41177
-rw-r--r-- 1 ak ak 42164549 2005-07-26 03:39 install.bin
ak@aux:~$ /media/BDH\ DE/linux/install.bin
bash: /media/BDH DE/linux/install.bin: Permission denied

While, to my disappointment, the message fails to inform me of what permissions I am lacking, a quick glance at the output of ls reveals that the installer has not been marked executable.

How do I run it?

The type of the file is:

ak@aux:~$ file /media/BDH\ DE/linux/install.bin
src/bdh-de/install.bin: POSIX shell script text executable
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  • 8
    What kind of file is it? 'file /media/BDH\ DE/linux/install.bin '?
    – user8290
    Jan 22, 2011 at 16:53
  • 1
    Ah-ha. Bizarrely, it is actually just a text file with a .bin filename extension. How aggravatingly misleading.
    – ændrük
    Jan 22, 2011 at 18:50
  • 1
    Yeah - figured. So solved? Like if it's a shell script - you can 'bash /media/BDH\ DE/linux/install.bin' or something similar now?
    – user8290
    Jan 22, 2011 at 18:58

5 Answers 5

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9

If the problem is that CDROM was mounted 'noexec' you can remount it executable.

sudo mount -o remount,exec /media/BDH\ DE/
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  • yeah, right, very good, worked well.
    – Silver Moon
    Jul 25, 2013 at 13:56
7

See what kind of file has been given a bin extension.

file $filename

If it's not binary data, it's text. So what program is to be used with this file?

head $filename

The first line might read #!/bin/bash. In that case run

bash $filename

to execute it. Or use whichever program for which the bin file was written, python, for example.

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1
  • I still think how can i double click on the file and run it. It is still refusing to run if the file has '.bin' extension.
    – DTdev
    Jan 24, 2017 at 6:03
4

If its not a script/text but a binary:

For 64-bit programs:

/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 ./program.bin

For 32-bit programs:

/lib/ld-linux.so.2 ./program.bin

Source:

"To execute binaries, use /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 ./program.bin for 64-bit programs and /lib/ld-linux.so.2 ./program.bin for 32-bit ones." – Comment from Lekensteyn on question https://askubuntu.com/a/17311/52853 Apr 13 2012

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1

mount CDROM manually with umask=000, i.e.

sudo mount  -o umask=000 /dev/sdXY /mount_point
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1

You can use one of both: 

bash -c <command>

or

sh -c <command>
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