How to Play with TarBalls?

[Gigacore]

Hey, As tech magazine's provides apps only the tar.gz format (source) Is it possible to compile them to GDeb to use it on my Ubuntu 7.04?

If yes which is the compiler i've to use.....? Where can i get it?

Will it be able to get the .deb package as the object file so that i can install it from the GDeb Package Installer???

Ubuntu Rocks!!

[mehulved]

try checkinstall

[Gigacore]

CheckInstall? where can i download it from?

[mehulved]

apt

[praka123]

use menu System>administration>synaptic -if u prefer gui.

[Gigacore]

I've installed it..... but which menu can i find it?

[praka123]

^ checkinstall will try to make a debian package from make file(in debian ubuntu) or u can make rpms etc.just read 'man checkinstall'
while u install from source and compile and make afterwards instead of make install -jus use checkinstall

~somepkg#./configure && make 
and 
~somepkg#checkinstall

u can edit checkinstall config file or via command switches to make rpms or .tgz instead of .deb

[amitava82]

If you just want to install then you don't need to make a deb. you can just compile and install. to do that:
Extract the tar by right click > Extract here
Go to the extracted directory using Terminal. Then execute these commands:

sudo ./configure
sudo make
sudo make install

you might get missing dependency errors while configuring. First thing you need to install is build-essential. Just check the error message in Terminal. It tells you what library is missing. then you can search in synaptic for that library and install. Then again do sudo ./configure

Now if you want to make a deb then first you need to install checkinstall. then follow the instructions and execure first two commands. Then instead of 3rd command do
sudo checkinstall

[praka123]

^^ there checkinstall helps.if u ever want to remove the package completely .deb installed by checkinstall helps.otherwise its difficult.most source pkgs comes with a uninstall script too(reliability?)..but u need to keep the source pkg dir u compiled for future inorder to "make uninstall"