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Getting Software
tgz and tar.gz These files usually are archives of compressed source code files. Files are first "tarred", and then "zipped". Tar, short for tape archive, compresses the files one by one, but doesn't make them into one single file. If tar 100 files the result will be 100 compressed files. Gzip actually stores the compressed files into one big file, therefore if there were 100 files to be gzipped, the product would be 1 file archive of all 100 files. Another point to be made is if you planing to download source code files, then that means those files will have to be compiled. In order to be able to compile, not only the downloaded files but any other source code, the development packages will have to be installed in your system. If your system is ready to go, read on. Lets suppose you have downloaded a file named filename.tar.gz, then you would type the following command in the same directory where the file was stored in: That will create a subfolder in the current directory called filename. We want to move into that directory with the following command: Inside this directory there are some very important files, namely README and INSTALL. Read those files. For a quick read through use the more command. Assuming both README and INSTALL have been read the following commands will get you started: './configure' will detect the development files installed in your system which are needed to successfully compile the given source code. It will then create a number of files with specific information about the compiling environment. One such file is the Makefile. After "configuring" type at the command prompt: 'make' will parse the Makefile created above and then execute a series of commands to compile all necessary source files into object files and then link these object files into binaries. Depending on the complexity of the application being compiled, this process may take a while before it's done. Assuming that make processed correctly then the next command would be: 'make install' will copy all the binaries and helper files (these could be scripts, pictures, sounds ...) into their respective places in the system and applications folders. Remember that in order for this command to work properly you must be logged in as root. After 'make install' the application should be ready for use. The README file usually specifies the necessary command(s) which would launch the application. The following commands are also usefull to know. 'make clean' will delete all the object files and binaries the 'make' command. This will clean up the system a bit and recover some disk space. 'make uninstall' is used to undo what 'make install" did. This will remove the binaries and helper files (these could be scripts, pictures, sounds ...) from their respective places in the system and applications folders, there fore uninstalling the application. Remember that in order for this command to work properly you must be logged in as root. 
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