Checkinstall

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CheckInstall is a command line program for Linux - operating systems to create Slackware -TGZ-, RPM - or DEB packets from source code packages of programs. It executes make installand creates a package, which can then be installed cleanly with the distribution's own package manager and later uninstalled. Checkinstall is under the GPL2.

Use of Checkinstall

After the code has been compiled make(the Makefile is usually created by a configurescript in the root directory of the source code package), the call to executes checkinstallthe command make installand registers the paths of the installed files. An RPM or DEB package is then created from this, which can then be installed with the distribution's own package manager.

In the most common cases, the following commands are executed in the source code directory: 

./configure
make
checkinstall #(als root)

After entering optional package information such as the author and description, which can also be specified as options when the program is called, the finished RPM or DEB package is obtained in the directory.

Using Checkinstall results in the following advantages compared to manual installation make install:

  • Clean installation and deinstallation of the programs
  • Does not override the package manager of the respective distribution

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