Installing software in Linux

Under Linux, there are 3 primary ways to install software.

• Installing using your distributions package management console.
  • SUSE
  • RedHat / Fedora
  • Gentoo Linux
• RPM files from your software vendor
• Compiling software from source
  • Unpack the software
  • Read the install Documentation
  • Configure the source code
  • Build the source code
  • Installing the binaries

Installing using your distributions package management console.

SUSE

SUSE has a really nice method for installing software through it's YaST management system. Before using this option, please read Configuring your SUSE installation source to our site.

You can launch it from the Main Menu -> System -> YaST, or by typing /sbin/yast2. In YaST, you simply go to the Software tab, then double click on the **Install and Remove Software** tab. Select the software you would like to install, and click Accept when done.

RedHat / Fedora

See the documentation for yum.

Gentoo Linux

To find the name of the package to install, type:

emerge search keyword

Then to install it, type:

emerge packagename

RPM files from your software vendor

If the file is not available from your package management console (please check!), then you can just install the RPM file by hand. If you are using KDE, and have kdeadmin installed (SUSE does not install this unless you select All of KDE), you can simply double click on the RPM file to launch an installer.

To install the RPM file from the command line, type:

rpm -i nameofsoftware-1.0.rpm

Compiling software from source

Sometimes the software you would like to install has no pre-build packages, or the pre-built packages are older than the version you would like to install. No fear here, most open source software packages have 4 distinct stages.

Unpack the software

Most source code packages come in .tar.gz files. You can extract these archives with the following command:

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

They will usually create a directory underneath the current folder with the source tree.

Read the install Documentation

Documentation is usually in files named "README" or "INSTALL". Be very certain to read these files.

Configure the source code

Most open source software has a configure script, which determines how your machine is configured, and creates build instructions in Makefiles based on what it discovers. To run the configure script, type:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local

The --prefix tells the software to install into /usr/local, which is recommended for unmanaged software packages. This step typically takes 1-3 minutes. If the source did not come with any configure software, you can usually skip to the next step.

Build the source code

The instructions for how to compile the source code are contained in a file typically named "Makefile". By running the make command, you will execute these instructions and create a binary.

make

Depending on the complexity of this software, it may take 1-30 minutes to make it.

Installing the binaries

This step you have to run as root. It will copy all of the binaries into /usr/local

make install