Manual code building, installing tar.gz

Quite often, on the Internet, you can not find ready-to-install deb packages, and you may not have the right version of the program in standard Linux distribution repositories. Therefore, you have to resort to building the application from the source code yourself. Distributed the latter in special archives of the format tar.gz or tar.bz2.

Go to the folder containing the required archive

A similar installation of tar.gz takes place using the "checkinstall" command. First, you need to build the deb package from the code. So, if the main command is not installed, then you need to write in the terminal: "sudo apt-get install checkinstall". After that, you need to go to the folder where the desired archive is located, using the command "cd directory_unique_program_code".

In this case, the installation is from tar.gz, so you need to unzip it with the command "tar -zxf program name.tar.gz" or "tar -jxf program name.bz2", respectively.

To achieve the desired result, you can also extract files by the archive manager. It's worth noting that for a more convenient work on the command line, a wonderful TAB button was invented, which automatically adds complex names to folders, files or archives. To do this, just enter the first letter of the name.

Configuring the source code of the program for its distribution

In simple terms, installing tar.gz necessarily assumes a configuration that means setting up files with the right text for a specific operating system. After this action, a file is created that describes the configuration of the system. For such purposes, the command "./configure" was invented. The OS itself after this does not change in any way, so the team is completely safe and will not damage the stability of the system.

Also the author of the application may wish to complete the installation keys, so to view the required instructions from the creator, you can type "./configure -help" or open the readme or install file, installing tar.gz archives, all this includes. This stage is the most complicated, because you need to install all additional dependent packages to complete the process correctly. Therefore, if the configuration installation has stopped at the middle of the process, you need to add the necessary packages to the system. In this case, all names of necessary libraries and packages are specified in the terminal. So, having understood well, you can easily navigate in such settings.

Build deb packages

The previously mentioned program "checkinstall" is just designed to create and install the necessary packages for various distributions, for example, deb packages that are widely used in such OS as ubuntu.

The installation of tar.gz is ultimately the result of this. To specify the exact assembly type, the "-D" key is added. That is, the whole team looks like this: "sudo checkinstall -D". All further operations for the installation and location of the program will occur in the same folder. To remove the program, you can use standard tools, such as Aptitude remove, Aptitude purge, Synaptic. The described installation of tar.gz is not the only way, but it can be the most preferred for many users. Nevertheless, one must be very careful and attentive, as everywhere there are pitfalls.