Installing .tar.gz files

How to Install Tar. Extract Tar. Use your File Manager to get to the location of the file. Right Click on the file and click on Extract Here. You should see the Archive Manager extraction progress. After completion, you will notice a new folder created along with the tar. Open this folder in the terminal. The concept of this process is easy to follow. If found, just do. If not found, you need to create a build folder to generate config files. Configure using CMakeLists. Next is to rightclick on the file and select extract to decompress the files.

Open the location of the folder you extracted and look for the Readme file and double click to open it and follow the instruction on how to install the particular package because, there could be different instruction available for the proper installation of the file which the normal routine might not be able to forestall without some errors.

First of all it is important to install the package build-essential , it contains all programs needed to compile on your own. What I can say for most source codes that I know of is that you will first need to extract the tarball archive into a folder of your choice. It is a very basic explanation, the real answer is : read the documentation provided with the source code Only there you will know exactly how to build it.

That way, you'll get all stable release, security and new feature updates while you install other system updates. Another advantage is that you don't need to worry about building, dependencies and harder uninstallation since the application won't appear in synaptic with tar files.

If you really want to use tar files, the common process is to run make install may require sudo :. Please note that some of the above commands may not be necessary, please refer to any readme files in the tar file or try to run. Files with the extension tar. Other examples are. This will extract the files from the tarball into the directory you are currently in and should create a new directory there with in that the files from the tarball.

This is probably not enough though. Depending on what it is it could have a complete compiled setup and you need to cd into the new directory and start an executable.

It could also contain the source to a program that you need to confire, make, make install. Generally ie.

I would assume it should contain a readme that explains what to do next. Installing software like this will NOT install any dependencies and will complain if you try to install a tarball before you installed these dependencies.

Use a website or the file itself to find out if there are dependencies and install those first. But always always always first try to find a. DEB ian installation file or a link to a ppa so you can use ubuntu software center. If you are trying to install the gimp plugins you skipped parts of the installation process mentioned in this link. Before downloading the files with wget visit the website and see if it has newer versions.

These instructions are from the 3rd of May so they could be old ;. From the official website of Linux Mint.

These archives generally contain the source of the package. Each of them generally has a different approach to install. I will be discussing a common method which will supposedly work for all of them.

As these archives contains the source, your system needs the required programming languages to compile and build the source. So the general requirement packages stated above may not be sufficient for you. In that case you have to install the required packages through one of the processes 1, 2, 3 requires internet connection.

You can know about the dependencies about your software in a readme file included in the archives. For this case, you have to replace install. Move to this folder with cd command with the appropriate path and then look again and follow the same process.

At first you should check existence of Ubuntu package for the application, which you are trying to compile. For example if you are trying to compile Empathy you should search package archive for it on packages. The results for Empathy :. As we know that packages have dependencies both on execution and on compilation , so we need to install compile time dependencies also known as build-dependencies.

Note: in this example. In that case you have two options - use older pre-compiled packaged version from repository, try to find newer version in PPAs or upgrade whole Ubuntu to next release preferably LTS. Often programs that are offered as tar. Here are some example commands I used today. The directories I used were informed by this post: Where to install programs?

Sometimes the package contains a runnable file with the same name of the software. You can just run that on the terminal. In this answer I am going to install one sample package ie. It makes an archive of files and folders but not compress them. Search for:.

GZ with the path to your actual GZ file, and hit Enter. Your GZ archive should now be extracted. If yours is a. GZ file, you need to use a different command to extract your archive. Run the following command in the Terminal to unzip TAR. GZ files. I've opened a terminal session and have access to my Pi.

You can store files on your Pi file system anywhere you have permissions. If you are not root, then typical places are your home directory, directories and sub-directories you create from your home directory and To extract a. As for installing a downloaded and extracted package, that will usually vary based upon the nature of the package.

You may want to see if the package is also available for apt-get download and installation. Note that you may put said tarball anywhere you like. See here to find out which directory would serve your needs best. Untar using this command as pointed out by Goldilocks, it might be advisable to create an empty directory first and do the dirty works in there in case the tar does not politely unfold into a new directory itself :.

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