February 2004
Beginner
200 pages
5h 40m
English
Packaged software files with names ending .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 typically contain source code that you’ll need to compile (build) before installation.
List the package contents, one file per line. Assure yourself that each file, when extracted, won’t overwrite something precious on your system, either accidentally or maliciously:
$ tar tvzfpackage.tar.gz | less For gzip files $ tar tvjfpackage.tar.bz2 | less For bzip2 files
If satisfied, extract the files into a new directory:
$ mkdir newdir $ cd newdir $ tar xvzfpackage.tar.gz For gzip files $ tar xvjfpackage.tar.bz2 For bzip2 files
Look for an extracted file named INSTALL or README. Read it to learn how to build the software, for example:
$ cd newdir $ less INSTALL
Usually the INSTALL or README file will tell you to run a script called configure in the current directory, then run make, then run make install. Examine the options you may pass to the configure script:
$ ./configure --help
Then install the software:
$ ./configureoptions$ make $ su -l Password:*******# make install