Installing software from source

All software programs are built from different files. These files are called source code and are written in programming languages. The most common programming languages that are used on Linux are C and C++.

There are all sorts of reasons that you may want to download and install a piece of software that is distributed as source code. Some of these are as follows:

• The software isn't available in the Raspbian repositories.

• The latest version of the software isn't in the Raspbian repositories.

• The features in the software aren't available in the packages in the Raspbian repositories.

There are a several disadvantages to installing software from source, such as these:

• Updates aren't automatically installed for any software packages that are installed from source.

• Additional software is required to compile and install the software. Generally this is the build-essential metapackage.

• It can take a long time to compile and install software depending on its complexity.

If you...