Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Installing Git and Other Tools on Linux Systems without Administrative Privilege

Sometimes I want to install software tools, such as Git, Screen, and the others on a Linux System, however, I find outselves without administraive priviledge. The first method comes to mind is to download the source code and to compile and to set it up. This method can be sometimes challenging due to numerous dependencies may also be missing on the system.

Recently it comes to me that we can do this via conda. For instance, the following steps let me install both Git and Screen on a Linux system without administrative priviledge

  1. Download miniconda.
    
    wget https://repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
        
  2. Set up miniconda
    
        bash Miniconda3-latest-Linux-x86_64.sh
        
  3. Initialize conda. Exit shell and get back in, and then
    
        conda init
        
  4. Install Git via conda
    
        conda install anaconda::git
        
  5. Install Screen via conda
    
        conda install conda-forge::screen
        
  6. Find and install others ...

Some may think this method is overkill. However, it saves me tons of time to download and compile tons of dependencies. Is our own time more valuable?