./configure
make
sudo make installback
5 comments
You forgot the lines necessary for downloading the dependencies, and the dependencies of dependencies, etc.
(and compiling and installing those dependencies)
That would work only for some people and even them will forget to check for updates. They would need a crontab or systemd timer, with git pull and the configure, compile, install pipeline. It gets unwieldy soon especially when you have to update or install dependencies.
It would work for most Linux distros, since this means that it's (probably) open source and therefore the package maintainers could package it with the distro.
If your package is FOSS, having the distros ship it is arguably the easiest approach.
Seconded on having a distro pick it up if the package becomes sufficiently popular. Until then, the ./configure dance is delightfully universal and it makes the downstream packaging folks' jobs simpler.
>It would work for most Linux distros
But not for most people.
It doesn't work for people who don't use Linux, true.
No automatic updates is a desirable feature for me, not a problem.
In 20 years using Linux, I don't think this has ever worked cleanly for me. Inevitably this will fail with some mysterious missing dependencies, it won't be clear what .deb package provides them, it turns out the distro version is too old or too new...
If you're on a Debian-type distro the checkinstall is definitely what you want instead of `make install`. It wraps make and gives you a package that dpkg knows about.
cargo install (the equivalent command here) is available. Downsides:
- very slow
- need to install prerequisites
- not possible on many machines (to weak, not enough disk for running builds)
Many users don't want to deal with this