Linux Tutorial Series – 175 – Building a program from source

Here is the video version, if you prefer it:

You may sometimes need to build a program from source. If its package is not available (or if the package doesn’t contain the most recent version of the program), then you need to build the program from source.

Generally, the steps are:

1. Download the source code
2. In your Terminal (positioned in the source code folder), execute ./configure
3. In your Terminal (positioned in the source code folder), execute make
4. In your Terminal (positioned in the source code folder), execute make install

Here, you are basically instructing your build system to take the source code and make the executable files out of it. That’s all you need to know.

I found a great more in-depth tutorial here: (“How to Install Software from Source Code… and Remove it Afterwards,” n.d.)⁠

Hope you learned something useful!

References

How to Install Software from Source Code… and Remove it Afterwards. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2020, from https://itsfoss.com/install-software-from-source-code/