Quick Tip: How to Install .deb and .tar Files in Linux

In this quick tutorial, I explain how to install programs in Linux using terminal commands. This particular tutorial uses Linux Mint 18 (Cinnamon 64-bit), but the commands provided below are universal to other versions of Linux, such as Ubuntu. For those of you who are new to Linux, chances are you'll be familiar with the in-built Software Manager:

In a nutshell, the Software Manager allows for easier installation of a variety of programs by simply searching for the program available, and then installing it from the manager. For instance, if a user wanted to install GIMP through the Software Manager, it would simply be a matter of locating the program and installing:

However, installations in Linux can regularly get more complicated than this, in that it's often necessary to install programs directly from the source code. Here, I explain how to install two particular types of extensions that often give newbies to Linux quite a headache. (It certainly did for me when I was starting out!)

We're going to look at the methods to install both Debian (deb) and Tarball (tar.gz) files through the terminal, and the two respective examples that will be used in this tutorial are Dropbox and VeraCrypt. The usual disclaimers apply: these two programs are only used for illustration purposes, and I'm not endorsing or promoting any particular products in this article.

1. Installing Dropbox through deb file

Installing deb files comes with varying degrees of difficulty. In other words, some programs that consist of deb files allow for direct installation, while those that contain many separate deb files typically must be installed through the terminal. Let's look at the Dropbox example in installing the deb file.

Firstly, we're selecting the Ubuntu 64-bit version (or the appropriate one for your system):

Next, we're prompted to install the package directly:

While this particular deb file was easy enough to install, there are situations where we have to install the deb file directly from the terminal. For instance, instead of installing directly, the program could have prompted us to extract deb files to a particular location and then install from there.

Using Dropbox as an example, suppose that we were hypothetically prompted to extract files and then install. For illustration purposes, let's call this folder Dropbox_deb, which is stored in our Downloads folder. Under this scenario, we would:

a. Set our directory to the Dropbox_deb folder in Downloads:

cd ~/Desktop/Dropbox_deb

b. Install the .deb files using the following command:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

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by Michael Grogan via SitePoint