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Unit 7: Installing Software

Configuring notes

Command to use: ./configure
After you have unpacked the tarball and have also solved any dependency issues by installing
required libraries it’s time to go to the next step: configuration. You have to run the command while
inside the installed package directory. This command does not change anything substantially. It
basically does a house-keeping job, checking whether all the required resources in the form of
system libraries are present and then assigning values for system dependent variables. Various
switches can be used along with the ./configure command to change the behaviour of the
program.

Example: Appending -quiet would stop printing the checking… messages during the
configure process. If you know what you are doing you can use -no-create to inspect the output
files before they are created. Using -prefix=mydirectory you can change the path where the
Makefile will be created.
After the ./configure command has run—during which you will see a bunch of messages scrolling
up the screen in rapid fire sequence—a Makefile will be created. This Makefile is then used to
build the binary which then needs to be installed.

Building

Command to use: make
The make command uses the Makefile to create installable binaries. Binaries are the Unix
equivalent of executables, or .exe files. The make command is time consuming and results in
a whole bunch of messages scrolling across your screen. This part is going to take a lot of time,
depending on the package being compiled as well as the system configuration. There will be
another bunch of messages scrolling across the screen, sometimes with warnings about some
resource being absent. If all is okay, it will display the command prompt. If however, there is
some problem it prompts you with appropriate status messages.
Most of the errors in the compilation process are due to missing or incompatible libraries. Say
you have a software that depends on GTK+, with the latest version not present. You might then
have to download it from the Web. For the most part, if your OS is new you won’t have any
problems. However, you can always search software repositories provided by your OS vendor.
Look for development versions which end with –devel.

installation

Command to use: make install
The make install command is the equivalent of point and click routine on Windows. The
installation time will again depend on how big the software is. Here is a quick guide to all that
you need to know about compiling from source and what goes behind the scenes, without leaving
anything to chance.Before doing this, you need to log in as root. Since you have followed the best
practices and have up till now done everything from a user account type su (sudo for Ubuntu)
and enter the root password. After getting administrator privileges use this command to install
the software.
You will have no glitches and every thing will work out fine. Don’t forget to log out by using exit
when you are done. The program will be usually installed in /usr/local/bin. However, if you
have specified a path during the configuration process, you will have to navigate to that directory
to access the program. In most modern Linux distributions, you will see a graphical shortcut and
will have to click there to launch the program.

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