definite linux newb with installer questions

[haemphyst]

Good morning, all... Please be kind, I'm a 30+ year vet of the M$ world (with many certs thereof...), and I'm trying to locate a daily-driver replacement for that platform. I have tried Ubuntu, BlendOS, Garuda, SuSE, Fedora, Alma Linux, CentOS... You name it, I've tried it. I even played (way back when) with BeOS (now, sadly dead) and its successor Zeta.

I have very few needs in my PCs. I have two very nice Precision laptops (a 15" and a 17"), decked out with STACKS of 500GB 860 EVO SSDs (swappable, and because of the many pre-filled caddies I have, Windows XP, 7, 10, and 11 are all accessible with a few BIOS keystrokes - UEFI or not, nVidia Optimus or not, etc) DL Blu-Ray writers, and 32GB of RAM on quad-core i7 2.7GHz (1.2/3.7) CPUs. Outclassed today certainly, but rocketships when any flavor of Linux is installed. No games. A ton of web browsing, occasionally I watch a movie. My biggest thing is audio applications. I build speakers, and I use them for enclosure planning (with sheet-cut plans, testing of drivers, waterfall plots after the build is complete, eventually a 3-D printer and Maslow CNC table, and a blackToothv2 LASER cutter/engraver). Enough of that...

I'm having troubles installing an application, and I've been unable to locate the fix. REW is a testing software that I want to try out, because it looks like it will do what I want it to do. I have the file, I can navigate to it, I have set the attributes on it (chmod -x), but when I try to install it using:

sudo pkg add REW.sh

I get this:

pkg: archive_read_open_filename(REW.sh): Unrecognized archive format

I've JUST installed the OS, and this is honestly the FIRST application I've tried to install. I've never seen an .sh extension, but the system tries to open it with Pluma, which I know is a text editor. It was not in the repositories, I had to download the file from the author's site, at:

https://www.roomeqwizard.com/

Please be nice to me. I am willing to try to fix things, I just sometimes need assistance from others that are more familiar with the environment.

[nevets]

Usually we install binaries with
pkg install
from the external GhoistBSD repository.
You can use System > Control Centre > Software Station to browse available packages - and then install by ticking a box.
The
pkg add
is rarely used - it requires you to have the binary file [pkg] in a local directory [along with any required dependency pkgs not already installed].
There is a way of locally compiling from external sources too - though this is quite technical.
In summary, the application needs to exist in an external repository to be installed to a freebsd system..

[haemphyst]

Usually we install binaries with
pkg install
from the external GhoistBSD repository.
You can use System > Control Centre > Software Station to browse available packages - and then install by ticking a box.
The
pkg add
is rarely used - it requires you to have the binary file [pkg] in a local directory [along with any required dependency pkgs not already installed].
There is a way of locally compiling from external sources too - though this is quite technical.
In summary, the application needs to exist in an external repository to be installed to a freebsd system..

I appreciate that. ALL distros are pretty much arranged the same way. What happens if there is an application (like REW) that I am interested in, and I download the installer from the vendor's website (like I did). Are you trying to tell me that there is no way to install and use that application?

"Rarely" used. that means it CAN be used, when needed. This is the information I'm looking for, not "you can't do it".

[haemphyst]

Wow. 150 views (and yes, I know some of them are web crawlers and bots) but nobody can tell me whether or not I am able to install a non-repo package? So I'm left with NOT being able to use the application I need, and is probably the ONLY one I'll have to install, to make a Linux Distro a daily driver...? That's sad.

[haemphyst]

I can't delete, so I just have to leave you with: "The forum poster is whack, and it made me inadvertently post a second time..."