You have downloaded or otherwise retrieved a software package. Most
likely it is archived (tarred) and compressed
(gzipped), in .tar.gz
or .tgz
form. It must
first be copied to a working directory. Then it is necessary to
untar and gunzip it. The appropriate command is
tar xzvf filename, where filename is the name
of the software file, of course. The de-archiving process will usually
install the appropriate files in subdirectories it will create. Note
that if the package name has a .Z
suffix, it will require
uncompress PACKAGENAME, then tar xvf PACKAGENAME
rather than the above procedure.
Sometimes the archived file must be untarred and installed from
the user's home directory, or perhaps in a certain other directory,
according to the package's config info. Should you get an error message
attempting to untar it, this may be the cause. Read the package
docs (especially the README
and/or Install
files, if
present) and edit the config files and/or Makefiles
and
Imake
files, as necessary, consistent with the installation
instructions. Some software packages permit automating this process by
running make install to emplace the binaries in the appropriate
system areas.
You are now ready to proceed to the build stage of the process.