Introduction

Most beginners don't know how to install Software in a Linux System. In this tutorial im going to cover the basics on installing software that is precompiled and normally downloaded as a compressed package (Like .zip or .tar.gz).

I downloaded my Software. What now?

First of all you should decompress the Package. As a casual user you would do that with an extraction tool like the Archive Manager in GNOME. But there are plenty of tools out there you can use to complete this task.

After you have decompressed the files you want to open a terminal. You now have to copy the entire folder you have extracted to the /opt/ folder. The /opt/ folder is used to store all software that is not part of the default installation. Note that you need root rights to do so.

To copy the folder you use the following command within the terminal:

sudo cp -r sourceFolder /opt/

After you have copied the entire folder you want to make sure that users using the system can execute the application. Normally permissions within the folder are correctly set by the distributor of the package. If this is not the case use chmod to make the executable runnable by everyone in the system:

sudo chmod 751 /opt/software_folder/executable

You can now start the application as normal user and test if the application read/write rights are set properly. If not use chmod as shown above to alter the rights on the files used by the application.

Melt with the System

To finish the installation you want to make sure everything is connected with the System. First of all we need to alter the PATH variable. To do so execute the following code from WITHIN the folder of the executable:

echo "export PATH=$PATH:`pwd`">>~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

After you have restarted your terminal, you should now be able to call the executable from within the terminal.

Last but not least you might want to make sure that the installed software is accessible trough the menu. To do so in Linux Mint just right click on the Menu Button in the bottom left and choose Edit menu. You can add the item wherever you want it to appear in the menu. Make sure you choose the path to the executable ("/opt/InstalledSoftware/executable") and not only the name (like you would type in the Terminal).

Finish

You now have installed the software the proper way.