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Installing software on ubuntu

Last response: in Linux/Free BSD
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You are "asking for trouble" downloading *nix software from **anywhere** but the official repository. Yes yes , everybody sucks in NOSCRIPT, GHOSTERY etc; and one day we'll get screwed royally for it. The **walled garden** systems model is too robust & successful to be ignored, even when the lawn is piled with GNU crap.


The Stealthinator said:
Can anyone tell me the easiest way to install software on ubuntu (besides the software centre) when downloading from websites? Or does the process vary for different programs?

While it's inadvisable to install software from other than the official repository for your particular distribution it can be done quite successfully. There are almost always installation docs which need to be followed to the letter. Understand though that you will be running into problems (most often dependency related) that may not be resolvable (may be one reason it's not in the repository). If you choose to go outside the official channels you will be entirely on your own.
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With *all* code? Certainly not. How could it? This is just the most accepted way in the linux/GNU world. Its really up to the developer to decide what and how to compile the code.

but generally most things you find will follows like this:
  1. tar -xzf foo.tar.gz
  2. cd foo
  3. ./configure <configure options>
  4. make
  5. make install


Commonly if you download and extract the tarball you will find files such as 'README' or 'readme.txt' that contain instructions for compiling correctly. Its a good idea to read these ;) 
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