@Thomas Richard that worked, thank you much.  

if anyone else experiences the same difficulty, before entering any commands in the shell, i had to move the download from the /Downloads to a directory i created in /home.  you could probably just change your working directory before entering the command, but i moved it anyway.  once in the new directory i did have to use chmod  u+x Maple17Linux32Installer.bin first to obtain permissions or whatever, then the comand ./Maple17Linux32Installer.bin prompted the extraction/installation succesfully. 

@Thomas Richard that worked, thank you much.  

if anyone else experiences the same difficulty, before entering any commands in the shell, i had to move the download from the /Downloads to a directory i created in /home.  you could probably just change your working directory before entering the command, but i moved it anyway.  once in the new directory i did have to use chmod  u+x Maple17Linux32Installer.bin first to obtain permissions or whatever, then the comand ./Maple17Linux32Installer.bin prompted the extraction/installation succesfully. 

thanks thomas for the reply,

so i have downloaded the lsb 4.0 packages from the repository, all of them including base and core as specified for ubuntu users in your link, and have restarted my machine.  

i then deleted the original maple installer files downloaded from the url sent when purchasing maple;

maple17linux32installer.bin ;and

maple17linux32installer.bin.part.

i contacted a maplesoft support technian who emailed me back saying that the download of the installer file was incomplete hence the .part, part.  anyways, so i deleted both of these files, and redownloaded them.  again the same two files are downloaded, the installer and the .part installer.  however after sometime the file completed downloading and maple17linux32installer.bin was the only filed left in my downloads directory.

now having downloaded the lsb i expected  once opened there would be on screen instructions to follow, however i continue to get the same sequential error messges;

1) archive manager: there is no command installed for stuffit archive files. do you want to search for command to open this file?

i elected to search for commands to open the file and the following error messages was populated

2) could not find packages; the packages could nt be found in any software source;

close or more information were my options, i choose more information

3) could not open "maple17linux32installer.bin".  there was an internal trying to search for applications:

GdBus.error:org.freedesktop.packagekit.modifty.nopackagesfound:nopackage found

is this implying that there are other software packages i need to download? 

thanks again for the replies

thanks thomas for the reply,

so i have downloaded the lsb 4.0 packages from the repository, all of them including base and core as specified for ubuntu users in your link, and have restarted my machine.  

i then deleted the original maple installer files downloaded from the url sent when purchasing maple;

maple17linux32installer.bin ;and

maple17linux32installer.bin.part.

i contacted a maplesoft support technian who emailed me back saying that the download of the installer file was incomplete hence the .part, part.  anyways, so i deleted both of these files, and redownloaded them.  again the same two files are downloaded, the installer and the .part installer.  however after sometime the file completed downloading and maple17linux32installer.bin was the only filed left in my downloads directory.

now having downloaded the lsb i expected  once opened there would be on screen instructions to follow, however i continue to get the same sequential error messges;

1) archive manager: there is no command installed for stuffit archive files. do you want to search for command to open this file?

i elected to search for commands to open the file and the following error messages was populated

2) could not find packages; the packages could nt be found in any software source;

close or more information were my options, i choose more information

3) could not open "maple17linux32installer.bin".  there was an internal trying to search for applications:

GdBus.error:org.freedesktop.packagekit.modifty.nopackagesfound:nopackage found

is this implying that there are other software packages i need to download? 

thanks again for the replies