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I Don't know how to install .tar, .bz2 and .gz packages. For example how do I install this?

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K3B is in the repositories, use the software center – Uri Herrera Nov 18 '11 at 21:59
Files ending with .gz are gzip-compressed files where .bz2 is compressed with bzip2. .tar files are so-called tarballs, an archive format. .tar.gz files are gzip-compressed tarballs and .tar.bz2 is, as you may expect, bzip2-compressed tarballs. bzip2 often results in a smaller file, but it takes more CPU power for compressing and extracting it. – Lekensteyn Nov 19 '11 at 10:16
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2 Answers

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First things first

It is generally not advised to download and install applications from the internet files. Most applications for Ubuntu are available through the "Ubuntu Software Center" on your system (for example, K3B Install K3B). Installing from the Software Center is much more secure, much easier, and will allow the app to get updates from Ubuntu.

That said, how to install tar packages

The best way is to download the tar.bz2 and tar.gz packages to your system first. Next is to rightclick on the file and select extract to decompress the files. Open the location of the folder you extracted and look for the Readme file and double click to open it and follow the instruction on how to install the particular package because, there could be different instruction available for the proper installation of the file which the normal routine might not be able to forestall without some errors.

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up vote 3 down vote

How you a program compile from a source

  1. open a console
  2. use the command cd to navigate to the correct folder.

  3. extract the files with one of the commands

    • If it's tar.gz use tar xvzf PACKAGENAME.tar.gz
    • if it's a tar.bz2 use tar xvjf PACKAGENAME.tar.bz2

  4. ./configure

  5. make
  6. make install

OR

You could just install k3b by typing in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install k3b

or by using the software center and searching for k3b

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Well, more generic instructions would be "download the file, unpack and look for install instructions either inside or on the website". – Sergey Nov 18 '11 at 22:21
I've never got any instructions for installing from a source, I only get a folder with some install.sh or configure files. What sources do you download? – Alvar Nov 19 '11 at 9:08
@sergey is it better now? – Alvar Nov 19 '11 at 9:15
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@Alvar: ./configure && make && sudo make install assumes that the package uses an autoconf style of configuring and compiling programs. You should search for the files INSTALL, README or similar. Also, make install won't work if the prefix is set to a privileged location (which is the default). Therefore, use sudo make install or install it into a directory in the home directory using ./configure --prefix=~/yourprogram. Then put ~/yourprogram/bin in your $PATH or make symlinks to it in ~/bin/. – Lekensteyn Nov 19 '11 at 10:14
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