A tarball, or tar archive, is a collection of files compressed into a single file. Tarballs are often used to distribute software, as they are easy to create and can be compressed to a small size. To install a tarball, you first need to decompress it. This can be done using the tar command, followed by the -xvf option. The -x option tells tar to extract the files from the tarball, the -v option tells tar to be verbose, and the -f option tells tar to read the tarball from a file. Once the tarball has been decompressed, you can then install the software by following the instructions in the README file.
Tarballs are a convenient way to distribute software, as they are easy to create and can be compressed to a small size. They are also a good way to store and transport files, as they can be easily decompressed and extracted.
