Install Directions for first time Linux install

My home folder is /home/ian
My WD folder is /home/ian/wdisplay
There is a folder /home/ian/wdisplay/libroot which contains .so files.

This is what I get for any of the following:

./WeatherD or
/home/ian/WeatherD or
/home/ian/wdisplay/WeatherD


error while loading shared libraries: libipworks.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have all the .so files extracted in the folder structure dictated by the gz file. I have the WD exe in the root of /home/ian and in /home/ian/wdisplay, as suggested in various posts. I have copied the .so files into /home/ian and /home/ian/wdisplay. Still get the same error.

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Two things I noticed -

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The old gz file http://www.weather-display.com/download/WeatherD-2.2b.tar.gz is 15MB and contains files missing in the latest 8MB gz file http://www.weather-display.com/download/WeatherD-2.4b.tar.gz

When I try to open the new gz file with Winzip or Winrar, they say that the archive is damaged or corrupted - but I can use Arc on Mandrake and open the archive. The old gz file can be opened with Winzip and Winrar without error. Is it possible the new gz file is actually damaged?
[/list:u][/b]

/Ian