[Whiteskin]

Techguy Linux-HOWTO: Compile a program from source
($ means as a regular user
# means as root)
The first time one needs to build a program from source, the idea to a new linux user is daunting. But once one has the basics, the procedure becomes quite simple and reptitive.

Almost all program building involves the program 'make'. Make is a special program, which reads input files and performs actions based upon those input files. These files are called Makefiles. One does not, however, need to know how to read nor write these files to build software.

The first thing one does is unpack the archive the source came in.
(Select one based on the extention)
tar xvfz program.tar.gz
tar xvfj program.tar.bz2

Under normal circumstances this will create a folder called program in the current directory. CD into it.

When one builds a program, the simplest of actions is the following:

$ make

Make will then perform the needed action to build the program. After this, you will have your binary in the folder.

Some programs reqire special placing on the drive, and thus need a second command (usually performed as root).

$ make
# make install

This makes the program, and as root, installs it. Boom, program installed.

More complex programs however, need to know about your system, what is installed, if it's dependencies are satisfied etc.

A third step is now introduced.

$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

The './configure' tells your shell to execute the script in the current directory called configure. Output will go by, as configure searches for the needed programs and libraries, and outputs the specialized makefiles.

Program installed!

(This howto is very basic. I don't cover more advanced topics like alternate make targets, configure options, automake/gen however it should be good for basics.)

[cheese]

Sticky for Whiteskin!

[mushka]

I searched for quite a while to find such a wonderfully simple guide to installing from source.

many thanks

chz
ben

[mushka]

and cheers to Cheese for making it stick

*BUMP*

[CouchMaster]

Straight forward, plain English - Everything should be so easy!

[xico]

Originally Posted by Whiteskin

Techguy Linux-HOWTO: Compile a program from source
($ means as a regular user
# means as root)
The first time one needs to build a program from source, the idea to a new linux user is daunting. But once one has the basics, the procedure becomes quite simple and reptitive.

Almost all program building involves the program 'make'. Make is a special program, which reads input files and performs actions based upon those input files. These files are called Makefiles. One does not, however, need to know how to read nor write these files to build software.

The first thing one does is unpack the archive the source came in.
(Select one based on the extention)
tar xvfz program.tar.gz
tar xvfj program.tar.bz2

Under normal circumstances this will create a folder called program in the current directory. CD into it.

When one builds a program, the simplest of actions is the following:

$ make

Make will then perform the needed action to build the program. After this, you will have your binary in the folder.

Some programs reqire special placing on the drive, and thus need a second command (usually performed as root).

$ make
# make install

This makes the program, and as root, installs it. Boom, program installed.

More complex programs however, need to know about your system, what is installed, if it's dependencies are satisfied etc.

A third step is now introduced.

$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

The './configure' tells your shell to execute the script in the current directory called configure. Output will go by, as configure searches for the needed programs and libraries, and outputs the specialized makefiles.

Program installed!

(This howto is very basic. I don't cover more advanced topics like alternate make targets, configure options, automake/gen however it should be good for basics.)

Hi Whiteskin,

I'm ready to install Ubuntu. Are there any further instructions, aside from this very good post?

[xico]

Originally Posted by Whiteskin

Techguy Linux-HOWTO: Compile a program from source
($ means as a regular user
# means as root)
The first time one needs to build a program from source, the idea to a new linux user is daunting. But once one has the basics, the procedure becomes quite simple and reptitive.

Almost all program building involves the program 'make'. Make is a special program, which reads input files and performs actions based upon those input files. These files are called Makefiles. One does not, however, need to know how to read nor write these files to build software.

The first thing one does is unpack the archive the source came in.
(Select one based on the extention)
tar xvfz program.tar.gz
tar xvfj program.tar.bz2

Under normal circumstances this will create a folder called program in the current directory. CD into it.

When one builds a program, the simplest of actions is the following:

$ make

Make will then perform the needed action to build the program. After this, you will have your binary in the folder.

Some programs reqire special placing on the drive, and thus need a second command (usually performed as root).

$ make
# make install

This makes the program, and as root, installs it. Boom, program installed.

More complex programs however, need to know about your system, what is installed, if it's dependencies are satisfied etc.

A third step is now introduced.

$ ./configure
$ make
# make install

The './configure' tells your shell to execute the script in the current directory called configure. Output will go by, as configure searches for the needed programs and libraries, and outputs the specialized makefiles.

Program installed!

(This howto is very basic. I don't cover more advanced topics like alternate make targets, configure options, automake/gen however it should be good for basics.)

Better yet will I be able to install Ubuntu with the information here?

[Big-K]

No. That information is for installing programs. Ubuntu, like most distros, comes with it's own installer(which uses dos-style graphics).

[I Fix 4 U]

Ubuntu is easy enough to install.

[Randolf34]

how about red hat 9.0? having fun with finding iso9660 cd images despite downloads of
everything in sight.

[I Fix 4 U]

^Old IMO. Quite old, i'd use fedora if you want redhat, unless you pay.

[bearqst]

Or WhiteBox for the RHEL4

[rob.rice]

well one important thing was left out
always always right after untaring the archive read the README file
"$less README "
this is even more important if there is a configure script to run because alot of functionality depends on configuration options and you could miss out on what your installing the program for in the first place
another good idea is to keep the Makefile around just in case you want to uninstall the program a good place to do this is to make a directory named after the program in "/usr/doc" you should also copy the text documentation to this directory including the README file

[jarchack]

Many modern distros like ubuntu and red hat have package managers and repositories with prebuilt software. Although many apps can be compiled and installed (assuming dependencies are fulfilled) you may end up hosing your distros package manager database. eg, you can download, extract, compile and install the latest version of software-x.xx but when you go to use apt or synaptic afterwords it will tell you that there's a broken package. With ubuntu being Debian based I don't thing there's a single application that hasn't already been made into a .deb file.

[klam]

Pretty nice mini-tuto so simple and so clean. Now my question is... how do you go about uninstalling the program since *nix don't have the add/remove programs? (assuming the program installed doesn't have an uninstall option)

Don't tell me it's like Mac that u just drag the whole folder to the recycle bin lol