Help needed with "configure" command

[tlinux]

I have just installed Kubuntu 7.04 in a dual boot system. At this time Kubuntu is not connected to the Internet. I'm going to have to use ndiswrapper to connect. In the meantime, I've found a tar ball that I'd like to convert into a deb package. I tried to follow the instructions in Linux Cookbook that calls for the tar ball to be unpacked and then run ./configure. However, "configure" isn't an instruction that Kubuntu understands. The book suggests that GNU coreutils and binutils are needed. However, I got them off the Internet, transferred then into Kubuntu and then installed them. No "configure" command. I looked through the GNU software and Google searched the Internet but really didn't find anything about "configure." In addition I'm going to need the commands "make" and "checkinstall." Don't yet know if they're installed or not.

If someone who is familiar with the Linux command line commands would clarify this and tell me how to complete this task, I'd be most grateful.

Thank you.

[Rog131]

Re: Help needed with "configure" command

You probably need 'build-essential'

informational list of build-essential packages

This package contains an informational list of packages which are
considered essential for building Debian packages. This package also
depends on the packages on that list, to make it easy to have the
build-essential packages installed.

More:
Installing Software in Ubuntu
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installingsoftware

Unofficial Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Starter Guide
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty

[tlinux]

Re: Help needed with "configure" command

I downloaded "build-essential", moved it to Kubuntu, and tried to install it. It didn't work. Here's what happened:

tom@emachine:~$ cd /home/tom/debPackages
tom@emachine:~/debPackages$ ls -l
total 5533
-r-xr-xr-x 1 tom tom 2512860 2007-05-19 22:33 binutils_2.17cvs20070426-6_i386.deb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 tom tom 6982 2007-05-20 07:24 build-essential_11.3_i386.deb
-r-xr-xr-x 1 tom tom 3136984 2007-05-19 22:35 coreutils_5.97-5.3_i386.deb
tom@emachine:~/debPackages$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package build-essential
tom@emachine:~/debPackages$


The install instruction is executed while in the debPackages directory where "build-essintial" is located. Why can't it find the package?

Thank you.

[mchuskie]

Re: Help needed with "configure" command

apt-get installs from the repositories. To install stand-alone packages, use

sudo dpkg -i filename.deb

However...

This won't work with build-essential, as it is a meta-package (a way of grouping many packages together). You'll need to manually go through all the dependencies of the package and install those individually.