{"id":2007,"date":"2020-02-13T17:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T14:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/?p=2007"},"modified":"2020-02-13T17:01:05","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T14:01:05","slug":"why-installing-open-source-packages-using-sources-is-cool-and-how-to-start-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/?p=2007","title":{"rendered":"Why installing open source packages using sources is cool and how to start today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Until you start installing packages on Linux\/UNIX systems using sources, you will always be very dependent on your distribution or vendors to stay up to date. <br><br>Installing from sources may not be for everyone, but I recommend it for novice and advanced Linux\/UNIX users alike, as it offers tremendous benefits:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Ability to fine tune the package according to your needs<\/li><li>You almost always end up with a much faster application<\/li><li>You get the latest security updates immediately<\/li><li>You learn a whole lot<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>So how do you install from sources?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Download the package from URL upstream<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The package may be in several forms: PACKAGE.tar.gz, PACKAGE.tar.bz2, PACKAGE.xz, or clone from a github repository i.e. <em>git clone [URL]<\/em><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Unpack the package inside your sources directory e.g. \/usr\/src:<br><em> tar zxvf PACKAGE.tar.gz -C \/usr\/src<\/em><br><em> tar jxvf PACKAGE.tar.bz2 -C \/usr\/src<\/em><br><em> tar xvf PACKAGE.tar.xz -C \/usr\/src<\/em><br><br><\/li><li><strong>IMPORTANT<\/strong>: Read the following two files if available: README (or README.md) and INSTALL. I can not stress how important it is to read the above files. The package <br>maintainer will usually include notes on how to compile and install the package<br><br><\/li><li>Change to source directory of the package<br><em> cd \/usr\/src\/PACKAGE-VERSION\/<\/em><br><br><\/li><li>Compile<br> <em>.\/configure<\/em><br><br><\/li><li>Install<br><em> make &amp;&amp; make install<\/em><br><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thats it!  If all went well especially during the make, you should be able to run your package.  Sometimes, the configure command will specify that<br> a dependency is missing.  You will need to install it before you proceed.  This is why it is important that you read the README and INSTALL files.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until you start installing packages on Linux\/UNIX systems using sources, you will always be very dependent on your distribution or vendors to stay up to date. Installing from sources may not be for everyone, but I recommend it for novice and advanced Linux\/UNIX users alike, as it offers tremendous benefits: Ability to fine tune the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11,75,74,73],"class_list":["post-2007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux-2","tag-open-source","tag-training","tag-unix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2012,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/2012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joseph.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}