I added a three obvious steps to the link's list. ( And one less obvious )
1. tar xvzf foo.tar.gz
2. cd foo
2b. less README
2c. less INSTALL
3a. ./configure --help ( for some installs displays options )
3b. ./configure
4. make
5. su
<password>
5. make install
The requirements and some options that you may want should be mentioned.
For some installations, you can also check for options with
./configure --help
For some like "par2" there is a "make test" step that can test whether the binaries and libraries work properly.
For best results, start off as a normal user. I have a directory in my home directory called 'downloads' where I download, extract and compile tarballs. The "su" command is needed before the make install command. For some installations, using "su -" will cause problems because a tool isn't in the root's path. That's why I recommended starting out as a normal user. If there is a DOC or doc directory, check for "*.texi" files.
These are the source files for texinfo. You can produce nice looking documents for printing by cd'ing into this directory and running: tex foo.texi
You might need to run this command more than once to set up the index.
Last edited by jschiwal; 05-22-2005 at 07:15 AM.
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