Re: What do I do with tarballs?

[Sean <snmjohnson@iclub.org>]

A tarball almost always implies source code.  This being the case you need to go
through the following steps:

First you have to unpack it:
    tar zxvf <filename> if it any of these extensions {.tgz, .tar.gz}
    tar xvf <filename> if it has this extension {.tar}
    bunzip2 <filename> followed by tar xvf <filename> if it has this extension
{.tar.bz2}

You'll see a bunch of stuff fly up on the screen, and when it's done, if you type ls
you should see a new directory.  It should be named roughly the same as the tarball.

    cd <new directory name>
    ls

You will probably a bunch of files.  First you should read the README, then read any
files INSTALL files.  If there is a FAQ, you might want to look at that.  Then type:
    ./configure

Assuming that goes well, type:
    make

Assuming that goes well, type (as root):
    make install

Assuming that goes well, and you haven't prefixed a special directory, your new
software will be in /usr/local/bin, and assuming that is in your path (if it isn't it
should be), simply typing the filename will run the software.

It's possible to get fancier with this, but that will come with time and after you've
read more documentation.

Sean



Stefan Langerman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> dselect is great, but what do I do when there is no deb package for the
> soft I want? I know of course how to install somethng from a tarball, my
> question is just: where do I do it? Where do I put the package etc. and
> make sure I am not messing up dpkg? Are there any conventions for that?
> Is there any doc that explains that?
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Stefan.
>
> --
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