How do you install programs which are tar.gz

I’m totally confused about how to install those kind og programs.

I do 1 click installs as much as I can but…

Why are you trying to?
It is better to use YaST or zypper.

To answer your question though, it’s;

tar -zxvf <filename>.tar.gz

…and then following whatever looks like a README.

I do agree with Jonathan that installing by using a package-manager is much easier. Which application do you want to install?

Edit: one-clickers should not be considered being a regular way to install apps. Use YaST / zypper and their repositories. You will find some threads in here on how to set that up.

Are you sure these are programs and not sources?
Usually ‘tar.gz’ ending files describe sources while binary packages rather use the extension ‘.tgz’. But they both are the same kind of archive.

Otherwise to extract a compressed tar archive, you woud use :
tar -xzf <archivename>
But careful ! You have do know what you’re extracting !
Better change to /tmp directory first and extract there or display the content first with :
tar -tzf <archivename>
The latter command is harmless

I don’t know if there is a package manager which can handle .tgz packages that you can use under openSUSE.

pkgtools can handle tgz. One might be able to get it to work in openSUSE.

As long as your not extracting as root user, then you have little to fear. Any extraction as a regular user, any damage occurred would be contained to that users account.

It is still a good idea to know what your extracting, and make sure it’s safe.

or if it’s a package, you can try to convert it with alien --to-rpm. Not sure it works. It’s easier the other way (converting rpm to deb or tgz). tar archives include little or no packaging informations.

What program are you needing to install?

I have not had to build a package in a long long time. It’s been so long that I would have to read up on it to do it. Most everything a new user could need is already built and in a repository ready for install the easy way.

As said above, the One Click Installs are handy in a pinch, but most of us add the needed repositories and then we just install with YAST or Zypper. It’s really painless when done this way.

milojb wrote:
> I’m totally confused about how to install those kind og programs.

http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts#Software_handling_.28Package_Management.29

the others are correct: try to avoid using one-clicks and compiling
programs in favor of using YaST and Zypper to install pre-packaged
for openSUSE programs, applications, utilities, etc etc etc…

there are thousands of those awaiting your call to service…what i
do, and suggest you do is open YaST, select Software Management, then
just a name “Search” on whatever you want…


palladium