Very General Software Installation Question

Rawr101 · 10-13-2004, 07:54 PM

Okay, I'm still new to linux.

I downloaded Kopote to /usr/local/src and ran tar -zxvf. Then ran ./configure and make && make install. After all that it just stayed in the same folder as the package, everything did.

Aren't make files supposed to distribute components to different places?

GT_Onizuka · 10-13-2004, 09:29 PM

Generally, they just copy them, the stuff you see remaining is what was necessary to build the program, and can be deleted after you finished compiling the software.

Just type 'kopete' in the CLI, and I'm sure you'll see Kopete, in fact, did install.

You might, however, want to look into Checkinstall, a nice little app that turns your source built programs into packages, for easy management.

Hope I helped

spuzzzzzzz · 10-13-2004, 09:37 PM

Makefiles generally copy components to different places. Since they copy the files, copies remain in the original directory. You can check if the "make install" worked by looking in /usr/local/bin (or whereever the default bin directory is--type ./configure --help to check) and seeing if there is a copy of kopete there. If you didn't receive any errors, it probably installed OK.