Installing software on Linux, or any Unix system from the source code is something that is difficult to pick up straight away. Nowadays, the chances you’ll need to actually do this are lower, but sometime it’s good to know how.

Back in September, I showed you how most source applications can be compiled and installed.

Installing software. It’s something that you do quite a lot if you’re like most computer users. On Unix-like systems, there are several different ways you be getting that program however - it’s not necessarily a simple case of double-clicking one setup file.

One of these ways is to download the program’s source code and compile it yourself. This process can be a little tricky to the uninitiated, but has several benefits - including meaning you’ll have the latest copy of the program and you’ll be able to get a copy if you’re using an operating system or distribution where no pre-built packages are available.

Unfortunately, the ways different bits of software are built means that this process can differ slightly depending on exactly what you’re working on. If you’re having problems, it might be you’re dealing with something that’s a little different, so you may have to look for more help.

Something that I didn’t mention in that post, but did come up in the comments was how to uninstall software that you’ve installed in this way. Here’s how.

Provided that you kept that source directory around, in most cases you can simply run the following (as root in most cases):

# make uninstall

However, some packages don’t implement this particular feature.

The bottom line is - wherever you can, try and avoid installing from source. But if you have to, this guide should give you a good insight into how.

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Mozilla has released the latest beta of Firefox 3 today, and the Linux efforts behind it are starting to show even more. This release, being a beta, is surprisingly stable. Here’s the killer that makes this beta release amazing: more GTK support.

Look at those tabs. They match perfectly with the default Clearlooks theme. It isn’t true GTK like Epiphany, but it sure looks like it now. Instead of using custom icons by default, Firefox will now obey your theme settings. For those icons that don’t have an appropriate GTK equivalent, Tango icons will be used. Check out the popup menu at the right. Notice all of the visual cues for the menu items now? It’s GTK heaven.

Thought the Location bar was smart in the previous beta? Well, guess what, it’s even smarter now; so much that it is beginning to get creepy. Think of a page title but not the URL itself? No problem, Firefox 3 has you covered.

Other additions to this release include a refined bookmarks manager, a ton of bugfixes (the usual) and UI enhancements in several areas. Overall, it seems like the Mozilla team is really looking to get rid of the ugly fat image of Firefox on most systems, and streamline the animal into something much faster, especially in the area of Linux. Much of the newfound Linux support is all thanks to you users out there who tested the nightly builds and commented (and complained) on them. See, you can make a difference!

And out of left field, it’s Nintendo! Never saw this one coming, did you?

The folks at OSNews have unearthed an interesting, not well-known discovery: Nintendo has released the “Nintendo ES” operating system, and not only that, but under an entirely free and open-source license.

The OS is written in C++, runs EMCAScript (JavaScript), uses Cairo for rendering, and as of recently, can run Squeak, a Smalltalk programming language implementation.

The official website includes screenshots, news, and some specifications, although it is all in Japanese. Google can come in handy.

The following screenshot is Squeak running on N-ES, virtualized with QEMU:

This project from Nintendo R&D is in very early development, but it could have a great amount of potential. No specifics are available as to what it can be used for or why it even exists, but we can only speculate. A Wii development kit? Unlikely, but possible.

“We propose an extensible component operating system architecture in which an operating system kernel uses reflection to process C++ pure virtual function based system calls and upcalls to provide a unified programming environment for application, server, and kernel development. We found that we could even develop file subsystems and a TCP/IP protocol stack on an existing operating system based on this architecture.”