Sorry for the noob question

Sorry for noob question but how would I install .tar file/app such as this one? https://github.com/USBGuard/usbguard/releases

I never compiled any program so a step by step explanation might be needed.

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Step 1: sudo apt install usbguard
Step 2: Profit.

Unless there is some reason you want to install this from source and not from the repos. If that is the steps here, but I can try and provide the exact steps if you still need it.

The post above is most likely the solution to your problem, but here is just some general info:

.tar.gz or .tar.bz2 files are similar to .zip or .rar files. It is just a way to compress some files into one file. You can unpack a .tar file (also .tar.gz and .tar.bz2) by using this command:
tar -xf ArchiveName.tar.gz
But PureOS has most likely also a Filemanager and/or Archive Manager that can do this for you, so you do not need to use the terminal, if you do not want to.

If the .tar file includes content you want to install, you will maybe find a guide for this on the website you downloaded the file from or inside the .tar file (in a README.txt for example), but .tar files are not specific for something that needs to be compiled or installed.

You could create a .tar.gz file that includes file1 file2 and file3 your self by using this command:
tar -czvf ArchiveName.tar.gz file1 file2 file3

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Oh yeah I’d like to install from source. So the webpage shows these commands but I don’t understand how/when/where to run them:

$ ./configure --with-crypto-library=sodium # or “gcrypt”, based on your preference
$ make
$ sudo make install

$ make check

What hardware? Laptop or phone?

Either way though, you need to open a shell window and execute the commands there - and, yes, per a previous reply, if you have a .tar file (or a .tar.gz file etc.), you will typically need to unpack it first before executing the commands that you exhibit.

You will typically need to install dependencies first, whether those are tool dependencies (used to build the application) or runtime dependencies (used to run the application) - and the documentation is often lacking as to what those dependencies are. So it can be an iterative process (aka “trial and error”).

I suggest you come up with a better title for your topic.

If you want to install from source…

I did this on a pretty fresh Librem 5 VM in QEMU, something along these lines should work for you on anything running PureOS.

cd ~/Downloads # you can do this anywhere in your system really, but I prefer things like this in here

# 1. Install dependencies, per https://github.com/USBGuard/usbguard
sudo apt install libqb-dev protobuf-compiler libsodium-dev asciidoc libpolkit-gobject-1-dev libglib2.0-0

# 2. Download USBGuard
## Option 1, download and extract tar
wget https://github.com/USBGuard/usbguard/releases/download/usbguard-1.0.0/usbguard-1.0.0.tar.gz # Downloads the offifical 1.0.0 release
tar -xvf usbguard-1.0.0.tar.gz # extracts the tar like how @johndoe explained
cd usbguard-1.0.0

## Option 2, clone the git repo and get the current codebase (you probably want option 1)
git clone https://github.com/USBGuard/usbguard.git
cd usbguard

# 3. Configure, build, and install
./autogen.sh # This is only needed if you did `git clone`
./configure --with-crypto-library=sodium --with-bundled-catch --with-bundled-pegtl # I found it needed these extra flags
make
sudo make install

You should now have USBGuard built from source and installed.

If you are new, try to understand the commands before you run them, as generally you shouldn’t blindly trust some dummy on the internet like myself.

Also, it looks like Debian may make some changes to this package, so what you get from the repos may work better in PureOS, I don’t really know anything about this application enough to say. Just something to be aware of.

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