On most Unix-like systems, you should be able to install libarchive and bsdtar using the following common steps: ./configure make make install If you need to customize the target directories or otherwise adjust the build setting, use ./configure --help to list the configure options. To build and install only libarchive: ./configure make cd libarchive && make install To build and install only bsdtar (assumes a suitable libarchive is already installed on the system): ./configure cd tar && make && make install