This is an old revision of the document!
Building Software from Source Code
Abstract
How to use commonly accepted methods for building software from source code. This software may be from a developer's tar.gz (tarball) download, from github.com or other git repositories such as SourceForge or Gitlab. The process is largely the same for an organized system of building. This discussion will focus on Linux as the operating system since many developers of Windows programs commonly provide installer packages for the pre-compiled binaries.
Kickin' it old school. The TARBALL (is that the proper British spelling?)
Before git was a thing, developers who shared code commonly used the “tar” utility to create a package of the source code necesary to build a project. It was also commonly compressed to save transmission time over the internet when downloaded. So the typical “tarball” package is named by the project name or executable name with the extension “tar.gz”.