Some projects only give you .tar.gz, what am I supposed to do with them? Is this what people call building from source? Am I supposed to move it to /opt and extract it in Debian based distros? Does this also work on Arch based ones?

  • Jack@lemmy.ml
    73·
    3 years ago

    Yes, this is building from source. You extract it and build it with whatever instructions come with it; there should be documentation from the git page or possibly in the tar.

    You choose where to put it, but most distros have general spots they put it. You can also use the AUR if you use Arch by using pikaur or yay

    • Kinetix@lemmy.ca
      10·
      3 years ago

      It is not necessarily building from source. It’s a compressed tarball, that’s all.

      • ghost_laptop@lemmy.mlOP
        4·
        3 years ago

        Well, I meant when you download it from a project’s repo, which is pretty much always the code.

        • Kinetix@lemmy.ca
          5·
          3 years ago

          Sure, if that’s where it’s from, that makes sense that’s what it would be.

          If they don’t provide build instructions, you may be on your own.

      • Jack@lemmy.ml
        11·
        3 years ago

        Hmm, then it sort of depends on the project. And I mean the AUR might already have it compiled for you or in an easier form for Arch users. But if you are using Debian and your your question was “will this compile the same way on Arch and Debian” then the answer is simply yes!

        What project are you trying to compile?

        • ghost_laptop@lemmy.mlOP
          2·
          3 years ago

          I am trying to install Foxit Reader and WineGUI for a friend on Manjaro, I found the latter on the AUR I think, so I should run yay install wine-gui-git?

          • Jack@lemmy.ml
            21·
            3 years ago

            You can do that, but like the other users said, you should be wary of obscure packages because the AUR can be used to spread malware. You can check what the script does to make sure.

            And I’d be surprised if you need WineGUI for that, but maybe it’s specifically necessary for how they want to use it. You could also just install WINE and use it to run the program; it will open the program’s GUI.

      • nogerine@lemmy.ml
        0·
        3 years ago

        You can usually find the instructions by extracting the archive and looking for anything with a .md extension or with a filename writtent in all CAPS (ex: README, README.md, INSTALLING).