Installing applications in Linux

Installing an application in a Linux system when the application is not in the distributions repository or the application does not have an installer is usually just to untar the application tarball.

GNOME3 lanucher

Untaring the application tarball makes the application not available in the GNOME3 launcher. Adding an application to GNOME3 launcher is just to add a file to ~/.local/share/applications.

For example, to add Android Studio just untar Android Studio tarball to a directory and then add the file ~/.local/share/applicationsa/android-studio.desktop

    [Desktop Entry]
    Type=Application
    Encoding=UTF-8
    Name=Android Studio
    Comment=Deveopment Environment for Android Applications
    Icon=/home/bjorn/android-studio/bin/studio.png
    Exec=/home/bjorn/android-studio/bin/studio.sh
    Terminal=false
    Categories=Development;IDE

Note that ~ or $HOME are not expanded so absolut paths are required.