Ubuntu – I installed a program by getting its source code, and then running `sudo make install`; how to make `apt-get` know about it

aptmakepackage-management

I installed program (call it, for example,progA) by building it from source code, and then finally calling sudo make install and sudo ldconfig.

However, it seems apt-get hasn't gotten the memo, because when installing progB, which depends on progA, apt-get recommends I also install progA. Why is this, and what could I do?

Best Answer

TL;DR checkinstall is your friend ;)

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

After a installation with sudo make install your package manager knows absolutely nothing about this installation. But it knows all about a package with the same name in the Ubuntu repositories or in a PPA.

Use sudo checkinstall instead of sudo make install and use a higher version as the version in the repository to be sure, that your package manager accepts this version as correct dependency for ProgB.

Further information:

checkinstall is really nifty, since it follows what the make install command would do, in order to figure out how to build a package.

This means that if you install a program using make install, but then want to repent for your sins, all you have to do is sudo checkinstall -D make install, and that command will:

follow make install to figure out what it does
copy-cat make install, except in *.deb package form
install from the package (exactly as make install would have, given point 1)) except also let apt-get know about it, and thus overwrite all the files exactly where make install would have put them as long as you choose YES to include the files put by make install in the home directory in the package as well -- a couple of options during the checkinstall process will let you choose (obviously though, the choice is there so you can exercise it on a case-to-case basis)

Bonus: you can also remove a package (call it progA again) installed using make install that odes not have make uninstall support by following the checkinstall process outlined so far, and then simply doing:

dpkg -r progA

Approximate equivalents of Windows install directories in Linux

\Windows = /bin
\Windows\System32 = /lib and /sbin
\Program Files = /usr/bin and /usr/lib

I would prefer to keep all my installed programs in one place so what is the right place for this in terms of best practice. In other words what is the Linux equivalent of C:\Program Files?

That would be the directories under /usr, specifically /usr/bin and /usr/lib.

And how does one always install at this location, is it just a matter of placing the tarball and running the install commands from this location?

No. Where you are when you run the install commands almost never matters.
Programs you install via apt-get (or aptitude) will almost always end up appropriately in /usr. BUT programs you compile from source and make install will more often end up in /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/lib, etc, and you may have problems with that since the user-installed path in Debian/Ubuntu is /usr and not /usr/local.
When compiling from source, add this switch to configure: ./configure --prefix=/usr. This way when you make install the files will end up in the right directory
Also look into the checkinstall program, which keeps track of the files a package compiled from source installs, makes a deb file, and allows for easy uninstall/reinstall.

What about if I use sudo apt-get to install a package. How can I point to this location to tell apt-get to always install there?

apt-get/dpkg take care of this automatically. You can use dpkg -L name-of-package to see all the files installed by a package and where they were installed.

Ubuntu – How to install recommend packages from a file (package.deb)

One solution would be to set up your personal APT repository and install the package with APT from there.

Another possibility is to extract the dependencies from the package description. This script pulls the Recommends: line from the description in the .deb file and removes versions and keeps only the first alternative when there are several.

apt-get install $(dpkg-deb -I foo.deb |
                  sed -n 's/^ *\(Depends\|Recommends\)://p' |
                  tr , $'\n' |
                  sed 's/[|(].*//')

With aptitude, you can install the set of packages matched by a pattern. If there are alternatives, install the one you want first.

aptitude install '?reverse-recommends(foo)'

From the aptitude full-screen interface, highlight the package, press Enter, navigate to “Recommends” and press + then g.

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to tell Ubuntu where to install a program and how to tell where an existing program was installed

Approximate equivalents of Windows install directories in Linux

Ubuntu – How to install recommend packages from a file (package.deb)

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