How to use a .tar.gz file

I downloaded Thunderbird from it's site, and it is a .tar.gz file. But I don't see how to inslall the program.

If I open it with "tar xzf" I get a folder with many files in it. There must be a way .

I am using Ubuntu 9.10

Thanks,

José

 

A .tar.gz file is simply a bundle of files packaged with tar, and subsequently compressed with gzip.Sometimes the extension ".tgz" is used as an abbreviation for ".tar.gz". This is especially common on platforms such as MS-DOS that have arbitrary constraints on filenames.You can extract the file from the decompressed archive would be done using tar.

 

Good... thaanks.

I got that far, but the result was simply a folder with many files in it. The problem is that it is supposed to be a program (Thunderbird) and I see no way to install it.

 

For Ubuntu, I suggest you use a package manager and not the tar file.

apt-get for command line access, but I guess you use Gnome or another GUI. There you'll find various package managers. This will be much easier.

If you want to use the tar extract, you will have to build/compile/install everything manually.

 

use the repositories if you're new to ubuntu/linux in general.

Code:

sudo apt-get install thunderbird

Basically you have a file /etc/apt/sources.list that contains a list of URL that tells your ubuntu installation that it can find software there.

You update the versions listed by

Code:

sudo apt-get update

You can upgrade all installed packages by issuing

Code:

sudo apt-get upgrade

You can search for specific things with

Code:

apt-cache search KEYWORD

You can even use pipe and grep to narrow down things

Code:

apt-cache search editor | grep "command line"

Get to know apt better by issuing

Code:

man apt

that's a very short man page but it lists the apt related programs:

Code:

SEE ALSO
       apt-cache(8), apt-get(8), apt.conf(5), sources.list(5), apt_preferences(5), apt-secure(8)

onto which you can each individually run

Code:

man COMMAND

like

Code:

man apt-get