Installing Evolution via tar.xz <SOLVED>

[Myz]

Hiya Folks
I have loaded Linux as a clean install 4 days ago. Never used before. Thunderbird would not accept icloud and outlook settings for email, so downloaded Geary, which keeps locking up and has display probs. After search on Net it appears Evolution was good and the way to go.
( i read in all the beginner files just have a go and have fun, not sure, have a go then I am getting stressed as I have no idea what happened, this is what I did)

I have tried to install Evolution 3.20.1 that was a tar.xz file from the Evolution website.
I have linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon
I am very green so looked up , what to do with a tar.xz file and found this
tar xvf evolution-EVOLUTION_3_20_1.tar.xz
so in the terminal I ran that, and a whole bunch of stuff flew by.
Nothing else happened so I exited the terminal.

Now I am not able to locate program any where Evolution.

1. Any ideas help please
2. I have not got the foggiest.
3. Can I reverse what I have done??
regards
Myz
Solution was:
all i did as per wharfrat instruction, I made a folder and extracted the zip, and all I had to do was delete the folder. Go to Software Manager and get the approved Evolution from there.

[WharfRat]

That application is in the repos so it would be best to install it from there.

What you downloaded and unpacked requires compilation which would entail installing additional packages to accomplish that.

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apt show evolution

will show package information and

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sudo apt-get install evolution

will install it.

As far as what you did just unpacked the archive to a folder called evolution-EVOLUTION_3_20_1 so you can just delete it.

You should always check the repos first

[Myz]

G'day WharfRat,
Thank you for your reply, greatly appreciated. I was searching on the web re a better mail program, and the site I was reading advised not to get it from the repos, as it would not be the latest version???

I also had just finished reading about 3 hours of stuff about Linux, getting started, things to do and not do, and the main message I got from that was just give it ago, have fun, and be a bit like a Niki Kid "Just Do It" which I did then spent the next 4 hours sweating over what I had done? Or didn't do??? And then feel like such an idiot!

I will have considered my self warned, and stay with the repos from what's in the software managers synaptic software manager etc.

May I ask though? What is in the Software Manager for instance is say version 0.6.0 and the software website says their current version is 0.11.0 as is the case say with Geary? How do you get the latest, and according the the software developer the most stable version?

I greatly appreciate your guidance and will take it under advisement.
Thanks heaps
Myz

[WharfRat]

May I ask though? What is in the Software Manager for instance is say version 0.6.0 and the software website says their current version is 0.11.0 as is the case say with Geary? How do you get the latest, and according the the software developer the most stable version?

Most distributions. e.g., Mint and Ubuntu, are geared more toward ease of use and stability. All the packages in the version's repository are tested prior to its release. The newer versions of software will eventually be incorporated or included with a later version release after it has gone through thorough unit and integration testing.

The Evolution package, along with other packages, utilize shared libraries known as the applications' dependents or depends. So Evolution's dependents also must be compatible with the other software packages that share the same dependents.

As an example the following will list all the dependents of mplayer

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ldd $(which mplayer)|egrep -v 'x86-64.so|vdso.so'|awk '{print $3}'|while read f;do [[ ! -z $f ]] && (dpkg -S $f);done|awk '{print $1}'|cut -d: -f1|sort|uniq|xargs dpkg -l

If you install a package outside of the package manager you could run into trouble with dependencies and cause other applications to malfunction.

You might want to familiarize yourself with the intricacies of the apt package manager before compiling and installing tarballs, but if you must here's a pretty easy guide

http://www.howtogeek.com/105413/how-to- ... on-ubuntu/

Good luck

[Myz]

Thank You WharfRat.
After reading the howtogeek stuff you sent, think I will stay with the package manager. Lesson learned.
Thanks
Myz

[Hoser Rob]

... the site I was reading advised not to get it from the repos, as it would not be the latest version ...

Which site? There are many crap linux blogs out there. Just because someone starts a linux blog does not actually mean they know much about linux. No one is vetting this stuff. And I think many of these guys get kickbacks anyway.

Pjotr's is good (he's often here), but I can't think of many other good ones that aren't too technical for beginners. I generally get most useful stuff from the ubuntu and arch support sites really.

I use almost all repo software versions. It's tested for your release version. Newer versions often break things. I haven't installed anything from a tar file for ages because it hasn't been necessary. The only ppa sources I have on 2 mint installs on one to enable HEVC playback in SMplayer and vlc.

It'd be OK to install from a ppa or tar file if the newer version solved a problem you really need solved but check first that it does ... never assume that it will.

[Myz]

Hiya Hoser Rob

As stated in the first post I have only had Linux installed a few days and am as green as can be. I have read so much over the last few days trying to get to terms with it. I have not in fact done any thing damaging,
Thanks to WharfRat and his/her kind guidance I have learnt a few things, quickly and in fact has set me on the right path. Lesson was learned and I am a little wiser for the experience.
regards
Myz