I have downloaded tar.gz files. But I don't know how to install it. How do I install this kind of file?
The first thing you need to do is extract the files from inside the tar archive to a folder. Let's copy the files to your desktop. You can extract an archive by right-clicking the archive file's icon inside your file browser and pressing the appropriate entry in the context menu.
Extracting the archive should create a new folder with a similar name. e.g. program-1.2.3.
Now you need to open your terminal and navigate to that directory using the following command:
cd /home/yourusername/Desktop/program-1.2.3
Make sure you read a file called INSTALL, INSTALL.txt, README, or something similar if one was extracted. You can check if such a file exists from the terminal by using the ls command. The file can be opened and read with the command:
xdg-open INSTALL
Where INSTALL is the name of your file.
This file will contain the right steps to follow to continue the installation process. Usually, the three "classical" steps are:
./configure
make
sudo make install
You may also need to install some dependencies if, for example, running configure prompted you with an error listing which dependencies you are missing.
You can also use checkinstall instead of make install.
Remember that your mileage may vary.
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