How to install .tar.gz files which don't have .config file?

Question

I understand that a .tar.gz file can contain anything, but many software packages are available for download as .tar.gz.

In my example, I am trying to install the flash player. I downloaded the file in /usr/local/src. Following some other tutorials online, I extract it with tar -xzvf. I navigate to the directory that gets created (in this case flash_player_ppapi_linux.x86_64) and try to ./configure.

But this returns the message bash: ./config: No such file or directory. This obviously happens as there is no config file. How am I supposed to install this kind of a file?

Edit 1- Output of ls -l

drwxrwxr-x 2 d4mr d4mr     4096 Jun 29 07:01 LGPL
-rw-rw-r-- 1 d4mr d4mr 18715584 Jun 29 07:01 libpepflashplayer.so
-rw-rw-r-- 1 d4mr d4mr     2222 Jun 29 07:01 manifest.json
-rw-rw-r-- 1 d4mr d4mr     2071 Jun 29 07:01 README

Solution

There is NO installation file in the .tar.gz file that you downloaded from Adobe website.

Ditch the manual installation. Here's how you can install flash from the terminal:

1. Open the program Software and Updates
2. Go to Other Software
3. Enable (check) Canonical Partners and close Software and Updates
4. Open up a terminal and run: sudo apt-get update
5. Now install flash: sudo apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

If you are using Chromium Browser, you can do it manually:

1. Download the .tar.gz file (I downloaded it in my /home directory)
2. Extract the compressed file
3. From the extracted folder, copy libpepflashplayer.so and manifest.json to /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins directory
4. Open /etc/chromium-browser/default as root and append --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins/libpepflashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=22.0.0.209 within " " of CHROMIUM_FLAGS

You can find the correct flash version in the manifest.json file.

Comments

[edwinksl]

Does the README tell you how to install it?

[Prithvish Baidya]

No. It just contains some licencing info.

[Phillip -Zyan K Lee- Stockmann]

where did you download this tar.gz from?

[Prithvish Baidya]

Find readme at pastebin.com/8rXk3KK7 . I downloaded this from the official website at - get.adobe.com/flashplayer/download/…

[Prithvish Baidya]

Is there any more info one might need to assess the situation?

[edwinksl]

@PrithvishBaidya Seeing that you have accepted the answer that tells you to install Flash using the Ubuntu repositories, you should always remember to check the Ubuntu repositories first for software before manually installing potentially unsafe .tar.gz packages outside the Ubuntu repositories.

[Prithvish Baidya]

Thanks! Totally solved it. BTW do I have to leave a line between these - --ppapi-flash-path=/usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins/libpepf‌​lashplayer.so --ppapi-flash-version=22.0.0.209 Thanks :)

[bytesandcaffeine]

No. Just use a single space