Help me understand the way linux install programs

[dodo]

So i managed to uninstall old LibreOffice and installed new 4.3 following instructions on LibreOffice site.
I downloaded tar.gz file, extracted it into my "home" folder, inside it was another folder named "DEBS", i opened terminal there, run some commands and now i have LibreOffice 4.3 (which is great btw.)
-what bugs me is: "DEBS" folder is still there where i extracted it, what would happen if i deleted it?
i don't know if this folder is important because program is already installed?
Because if it isn't, i would gladly delete it to free 200 MB of disk space.

[gold_finger]

You can go ahead and delete that downloaded and extracted files now that the program has been installed.

If you are using LL 1.08, then an easier way to have installed LibreOffice 4.3 would have been to add the PPA for it to your system -- https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+arch...office-4-3.  By using the PPA, whenever you install updates that will pull in any updates automatically from the PPA also.

Generally speaking, it's always best to try installing things that are included in the repositories or PPAs because those are most likely to work best with whatever OS version you have.  In cases where you'd prefer to have the latest software version and it's not the one in the repos, try to find out if there is a PPA available for it.  If so, it's best to use that.  If not, then you can manually install things as you have done.

If you have not seen this yet, here is an excellent tutorial by misko_2083 on the various ways to install software:  How to install software.

[dodo]

thank you very much 

[shengchieh]

Here're even more links.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/...urce_linux (Compile Programs From Source in Linux)
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/softinstall.html (Installing software from source in Linux)
http://www.linux.lk/software/compiling.php (Compiling Software Packages; 2003)
http://howto.wired.com/wiredhowtos/index...egory=Work (Compile Software from Source Code)
http://liquidweather.net/howto/index.php?id=82 (compiling software)

My strategy is first see if I can use whatever the linux distro has, i.e., synaptic package manager, pacman, software manager, etc.  The second is to compile.

Sheng-Chieh