I am quite familiar with writing small programs or scripts, and I am also familiar with downloading a source tarball and installing it using ./configure && make && make install (or, failing that, doing whatever the INSTALL or README files tell me to do). However, I don’t know how to take a script that I’ve written and package it up (along with its supporting files) so that it can be installed as above.
I’ve tried Googling, but I’m not sure what search terms to use. If I try something involving the word “package,” I get guides on how to convert a tarball to a deb/rpm/miscellaneous-distro-specific-package-format, which is not what I want.
I guess I need to use something called a build system, which might be called autotools, unless it’s actually cmake, rake, scons, or something else?
Also, if my program requires some supporting files, how might I need to modify my program so that it can locate those files once they have been installed in /usr/share, /usr/lib, and wherever else they end up after installation?
Basically, I’m looking to graduate from writing scripts to writing distributable programs.
Answering your question “How do I learn how to use autotools to distribute my program as a tarball?”
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/ and
http://sources.redhat.com/autobook/ (Outdated but still useful)