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can any one help me? the big problem of linux is that you have to type to install most of the apps! i'm searching for an application which can automatically install tarballs just by clicks(No linuxigeekly typing!) is there any thing like that???

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3 Answers 3

I'm assuming you're using Ubuntu. If so, did you try Software Centre? does pretty much what you need. You select the software you want to install from a pretty graphical screen and it takes care of downloading and installing for you.

You mention that you'd like to install apps that are not available in Software Center. It'd be useful if you could provide examples. Most common-use applications are packaged and available in USC. Part of the reason is that apps distributed as source are considered of "intermediate" difficulty to install, you will need to use the command line for those, and even distros that compile everything, such as Gentoo, require someone to come up with a set of rules for how to compile each application.

That said, if you have specific applications that you'd like to see available in Software Center, and it's something that is likely to be of general use, you can request an Ubuntu package by following this procedure.

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i used USC before but some apps are avilable only in tar on net & i want to install them by GUI. any idea? –  arman Dec 15 '11 at 9:01

Yes, but not that I know of for Ubuntu. emerge (gentoo) and pacman (arch) are the two tools I am familiar with.

I think a better question is why are you installing from source code ?

Here is a great discussion about installing packages outside of your package manager

Yes it is a Fedora link, but the advice is spot on.

Other considerations are ;

  1. tar balls are just archives. They can contain binary , pre-compiled code (firefox) and scripts with closed source code (nvidia) to install scripts.

  2. You really should read the README included with source code.

  3. When you compile from source code, you have to manually resolve dependencies. This is why we make package managers, such as apt and graphical front ends such as the software center.

  4. One advantage of Ubuntu is the size of the repositories. Use them if the package is in the repos.

  5. One advantage of .configure is, well to customize the binary. Hard to automate such choices. Usually when I am compiling from source there is a requirement for some tweak. If you are just going to go with the defaults, use apt.

  6. If you want to do a lot of compiling, use Linux from scratch or gentoo.

LFS has some tools -

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A .tar file can be compared with a .zip file: it is just an archive containing files. It may contain source code, binaries, images, etc. There is no universal way to "install" a tarball. If it's source code, you'll often find an INSTALL or README file. Since there is no standard of how those files look like, there is no way to have such a program.

Standard tools exist for configuring and building applications from source, e.g. autoconf and CMake. These tools are configurable and may not fit in your environment directly.

Take a car for example. You don't just go to a random seller and buy a random car from him. Instead, you try to find out what your preferences are and whether it suits you and your environment. (if you're very lengthy, you won't pick a small car).

Just install your software from the Ubuntu Software Center or Muon (for Kubuntu) if possible. Otherwise, have a look at the installation instructions on the website of the application, the README or INSTALL files. If you really want to use a certain program, you shouldn't be afraid of using the terminal if that's necessary. It does not bite you.

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