What exactly are .run files and what are they used for? I've seen a couple of those lately and I'm simply wondering what file format it is used for.
asked Nov 15, 2010 at 21:20
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5Files that run. Go catch them!– Cody HarlowNov 16, 2010 at 0:31
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@kalina This isn't about installing .run files..– SethNov 16, 2013 at 20:57
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2 Answers
A .run file is normally a custom made program which needs to be executed in order to install a program. These are not supported generally as they don't track where files go and don't normally provide an uninstall method. there is no way to be sure what the script will do to your system so they're considered unsafe.
They are close to the windows exe file and as such come with the same issues. If you know what you're doing and are happy about taking the risks, you can execute them with these commands:
chmod 755 programinstall.run
sudo ./programinstall.run
answered Nov 15, 2010 at 21:24
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1They can be either, there is no set method or format as such. Nov 15, 2010 at 22:30
They are usually executables of some form. They're not neccessarily installers although most of the ones you'll see are.
As Martin says, and assuming we're talking about an installer, they're usually not as good as packages for when you want to remove them however there are some installers (I'm thinking mainly of the Loki and LGP game installers) do track where they install to and provide a pretty robust uninstall binary.
And what Martin says will work for most binaries, most .run files I've seen are hybrid shell script and compressed binary elements. This means you can just run them through sh. An example with the NVIDIA driver installer:
sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.06.run
You can check to see what a file really is (well it works most of the time) with file:
file NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.06.run
NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.06.run: POSIX shell script text executable
