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.
Best Answer
To install one usually only needs a few commands. After downloading and placing the tar in the directory you wish to install it in (I use my home dir as it is easy) follow the steps by opening a terminal and making sure you are in your home by typing
ls
This will show the files in the directory and you should also see pcmonitor.tar.gz listed
Next you want to unpack pcmonitor.tar.gz with
This will create a directory named pcmonitor. Check for it by using
ls
. Now you want to run install do this withThe
sudo
is because the installation needs root privledges. From here the installation should take over. Hope this helps.P.S. It is note worthy to state that this install is not the usual
that works for many other tarballs you may download in the future.