Based on the installation guide below, I want to install/add binary into my PATH.
If you’ve downloaded a binary release, you can simply extract the tvmv executable somewhere in your PATH. No installation process is required.
To uninstall, simply remove the binary.
(Note: At the moment, tvmv MacOS binaries are built for Intel Macs. If you’re using an Apple Silicon machine, you’ll need to install Rosetta (softwareupdate --install-rosetta) or you’ll get “bad CPU type” errors.)
The instructions are a bit vague. How do I add the tvmv binary to my PATH so I can run it from anywhere in terminal? Any step-by-step explanation?
Keecase is right, usually it is easier to let a package manager do the job if it is available in a repo. In this case, the AUR.
However, if for some reason, you don’t want to do that:
A common way is to create a .local/bin directory in your user’s home and place an executable there. Then, you can add that directory to the path. Here is more information on adding a dir to the path.
Thanks for the tip! I think I’ll try adding it manually to my PATH. On Windows, I am used to dropping executable somewhere and updating the PATH variable, which is more straightforward due to graphical interface. So I would like to see how it works on Linux.
Linux is not Windows and you shouldn’t bring your bad Windows habits over to Linux.
One of Linux’s greatest strengths over Windows is the great user experience package managers give you, thanks to the centralized management of software. One tool to update your entire system, or add or remove software. If you use a package manager, you won’t have to search for all the places a program put files when you want to remove it, you simply execute a single command in the terminal (or click a button if you use a graphical package manager) and everything is taken care of for you. It is as simple as installing an app on your phone.
You really should NOT install programs like you are used to on Windows.
I understand that the preferred way on Linux is to use a package manager, and I agree it’s the cleanest solution when the software is available in a repo.
Thanks to keecase, I didn’t realize tvmv was already in the AUR, that’s really helpful.
Still, not every app is packaged for every distro, so sometimes binaries are the only option. I want to explore how Linux handles PATH compared to Windows, where there’s a GUI for adding executables, and see whether Linux has a similar option or if it’s purely command‑line. For me, this is more about learning how the system works under the hood than avoiding package managers.
Once downloaded and extracted, you could simply copy / move the tvmv binary to /.local/bin or /usr/local/bin. Creating a symlink would work as well. No need to edit the PATH.
But you could append additionally directories to your PATH as well, indeed. Depending on the shell environment you’re using. In short, persistent additions to your PATH should be specified in your .bash_profile if you’re using bash.
Alright. It was important to me to make my message clear and I think I did. The link in my first response is a good source on adding a directory to PATH on Linux, it should answer your questions.
I am unaware of a specific tool to edit the path, the usual way is to use a text editor of your choice (graphical or terminal, doesn’t matter) to modify e.g. ~/.profile.
