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I stumbled on this web page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sogfl/?source=navbar

How do I install the downloaded file called sogfl_v0.1.0.1.tar.bz2 in Ubuntu?

Some help would be much appreciated.

Eric Carvalho
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n00b
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1 Answers1

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Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T should work), then cd to the directory to which you have downloaded the file (you should move the .tar.bz2 file into some empty directory):

mkdir -p ~/Apps/OpenVPN-gui
mv ~/Downloads/sogfl_v0.1.0.1.tar.bz2 ~/Apps/OpenVPN-gui/
cd ~/Apps/OpenVPN-gui/

Then you have to unpack it, it can be done by this command

bzcat sogfl_v0.1.0.1.tar.bz2 | tar x

Then you can see many files, i.e. README in this case so do cat README and see, that there is written to do typical configure & make & make install dance:

./configure
make
sudo make install

Note: There's probably a mistake in the README file - make and make install should be without ./ and if you're not root user, you probably will need do make install with sudo.

This is the way how to install most of the source tarballs. It's good to know it, but if you can, try to search for an Ubuntu package instead.

hg8
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Rafael van Horn
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  • Thanks a lot for your help. I am new to Ubuntu (I have always been using Microsoft Windows OS). Unfortunately for this particular program, there is no Ubuntu package available. I have a related question. By convention, what is the best practice to install non-Ubuntu-package-ready software? In which folder or directory do we extract and install such software? (In Microsoft Windows for example, the default installation path is C:\Program Files{name of software}) – n00b Jul 09 '13 at 00:25
  • After issuing the commands "./configure", "make" and "sudo make install", into which directory or folder is the program installed? – n00b Jul 09 '13 at 00:31
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    Nothing wrong with piping the output of bzcat to tar, but an equivalent, more novice-friendly way to extract a file that ends in .tar.bz2 (like sogfl_v0.1.0.1.tar.bz2 here) is just to run tar xf sogfl_v0.1.0.1.tar.bz2. (You don't even need the j flag--all remotely recent versions of tar not only support bz2, but will automatically decompress a compressed archive during extraction, without having to be told to do so.) – Eliah Kagan Jul 09 '13 at 01:44
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    @n00b There is no special convention. The system has its own dirs to put the app stuff (i.e. /bin or /usr/bin and /usr/lib for libraries etc.). I usually have /home/rafael/Apps/ and put everything there as I have described above. The ./configure should only set some stuff in working dir/subdirs. The make should compile and link the application - so it should create binaries and place it in current working dir. make install usually copies the files somewhere (i.e. into /usr/bin/). There should be also "make uninstall" supported to revert the changes done by "make install", but it is unsure. – Rafael van Horn Jul 09 '13 at 15:53
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    @n00b / ...continuation: If you are interested in what "make" commands are doing in your system, you may check the Makefile, section "install:". It's specified there, what will the script do. "Good" applications support "make uninstall" and they also have some "README" or "INSTALL" files for you to read before you start doing anything. There should be also specified which libraries do you need to build the application and so on... – Rafael van Horn Jul 09 '13 at 15:58
  • @Rafael van Horn: Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to answer my questions. – n00b Jul 09 '13 at 18:10