How do I install programs

[CrazyLazy]

Okay I download a compressed program, unpack it. The issue is then, how do I install it? The readme tells me to run various make commands, all of which return errors. Google has been unable to help me.

 

[Crusty]

You only need to compile it if it's not included in the repositories.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Crusty
You only need to compile it if it's not included in the repositories.

And things requiring "make" means you're compiling from source.

 

[Warthog912]

What distro are you using? Generally speaking, most distros have considerably easier ways to install apps than from source. Tell us what distro (Ubuntu/SUSE/CentOS) and we can help with an easier way.

 

[Colt45]

install gcc, make, binutils, etc, so that you can compile it.

or, look for a package instead of source, if available...

 

[degibson]

1) Tell us which distribution you are using.
2) Show us the errors.
3) Tell us what the output is of the following commands:
which make
make -v
which gcc
gcc -v

 

[Nothinman]

I believe Ubuntu, like Debian, has a build-essential package that will get you most of the things you need to compile things. But you should only be building from source as your last option.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I believe Ubuntu, like Debian, has a build-essential package that will get you most of the things you need to compile things. But you should only be building from source as your last option.

It does, if on Ubutntu:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

 

[Net]

if its source i usually do:

./configure
make
make install (as root )

you'll have to see if its source, a binary or an rpm, etc...

 

[Fallen Kell]

As others have already said, anything that requires you to run "configure", "make", "make install" is compiling the application from the source code. While this is actually useful to many people (like me), for normal users, it is best to look for something already compiled. Depending on your distribution, you should look for a .rpm, .deb, or .yum file for the application. Or search different software repositories "yum" or "apt-get" (or for the non-command line people, "yum-ex", or "synaptic").

If you can not find an appropriate binary package of the software, well, you will need to make sure you installed all the stuff you need to compile software when you installed your linux distribution. This stuff is not always default installed, and is usually an option labelled something like "Developer Packages", "Developer Tools", or "Software Tools". At a minimum you need a recent version of "gcc" (not simply just gcc core, but g++, and gfortran are also sometimes required), "gnu make", "gnu binutils", glibc, libgtk, libgdk, zlib, liberty, fontconfig, freetype, freetype2, libgd, libpng, libjpeg, libtiff... Those will cover just about all things that you would need for compiling code.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If you can't get a rpm and it's not in the yum or apt respository, then you have to do the ./configure route, which is hit or miss. Pray before you perform any type of install commands. If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

Standard programs like apache and stuff will most likely always have a premade package on the yum/apt repositories though, and those work 99% of the time.

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

We RTFM. ;-)

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

We RTFM. ;-)

By definition, wouldn't an atheist believe life doesn't come with a FM?

 

[degibson]

Originally posted by: Brazen

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

We RTFM. ;-)

By definition, wouldn't an atheist believe life doesn't come with a FM?

I meant the FM for whatever we're ./configure'ing

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

We RTFM. ;-)

That only works if nothing goes wrong. The FM won't explain why you get some weird unexplained error that ends with 0xff93949f Google will help you find a thread you posted on a forum about the error. (that happens to me all the time) haha.


But yeah most of the time you'll be able to find a rpm and those are usually smooth to install unless there's dependencies. I've seen situations where a single rpm will require about 20 dependencies then those 20 require 20 more etc... then you end up where dependency A requires B but B requires A. Then you're screwed. That's rare though, but I've seen it.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

Originally posted by: degibson

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
If you're atheist, do whatever atheists do when they need "outside" help with a problem in life. (Ouija board?)

We RTFM. ;-)

That only works if nothing goes wrong. The FM won't explain why you get some weird unexplained error that ends with 0xff93949f Google will help you find a thread you posted on a forum about the error. (that happens to me all the time) haha.


But yeah most of the time you'll be able to find a rpm and those are usually smooth to install unless there's dependencies. I've seen situations where a single rpm will require about 20 dependencies then those 20 require 20 more etc... then you end up where dependency A requires B but B requires A. Then you're screwed. That's rare though, but I've seen it.

I don't know what you're trying to compile but it's never ever been that hard for me.. ever. RTFM is exactly right, they usually tell you exactly what dependencies and versions you need. Any modern distro will be able to install whatever those are you need fairly easily, and if not rinse and repeat.

It might be tedious but it's most certainly not always difficult, especially if you're working with something that's been maintained recently.

 

[Nothinman]

But yeah most of the time you'll be able to find a rpm and those are usually smooth to install unless there's dependencies. I've seen situations where a single rpm will require about 20 dependencies then those 20 require 20 more etc... then you end up where dependency A requires B but B requires A. Then you're screwed. That's rare though, but I've seen it.

That's what things like apt and yum were designed to handle, installing packages by hand should be avoided as much as possible. And rpm and dpkg are both smart enough to figure out and handle the situation where 2 packages depend on eachother.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

But yeah most of the time you'll be able to find a rpm and those are usually smooth to install unless there's dependencies. I've seen situations where a single rpm will require about 20 dependencies then those 20 require 20 more etc... then you end up where dependency A requires B but B requires A. Then you're screwed. That's rare though, but I've seen it.

That's what things like apt and yum were designed to handle, installing packages by hand should be avoided as much as possible. And rpm and dpkg are both smart enough to figure out and handle the situation where 2 packages depend on eachother.

Yeah, I'm just saying, if the apt/yum repository does not have a program and you have to do it by hand. That's where it gets tedious.

Ex: VMware, or any "non standard" app. Try installing VMware 1.0 on a modern enough distro, and well, good luck. It's doable, but it's not easy.

Stuff like apache, php, and lot of other standard server and client apps are as easy as "yum install [programname]".

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

Originally posted by: Nothinman

But yeah most of the time you'll be able to find a rpm and those are usually smooth to install unless there's dependencies. I've seen situations where a single rpm will require about 20 dependencies then those 20 require 20 more etc... then you end up where dependency A requires B but B requires A. Then you're screwed. That's rare though, but I've seen it.

That's what things like apt and yum were designed to handle, installing packages by hand should be avoided as much as possible. And rpm and dpkg are both smart enough to figure out and handle the situation where 2 packages depend on eachother.

Yeah, I'm just saying, if the apt/yum repository does not have a program and you have to do it by hand. That's where it gets tedious.

Ex: VMware, or any "non standard" app. Try installing VMware 1.0 on a modern enough distro, and well, good luck. It's doable, but it's not easy.

Stuff like apache, php, and lot of other standard server and client apps are as easy as "yum install [programname]".

I've installed VMware server on probably 25 different servers over the past year, it's not that hard. All you need is the same build environment your kernel was built in and the perl runtime.

 

[Nothinman]

Ex: VMware, or any "non standard" app. Try installing VMware 1.0 on a modern enough distro, and well, good luck. It's doable, but it's not easy.

VMware isn't standard by any means but it's not difficult, as long as you have a build environment and the right kernel-headers package installed you're fine.