How-to install Bash 4.1 in Linux

This guide is for almost every Linux distribution.

Prerequisite is that you have the required build tools installed already.
If not, do the following step:

Debian and Ubuntu users way;

sudo apt-get install build-essential

The Fedora/Red Hat way:

sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools" "Legacy Software Development"

First step is getting the source package

wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/bash-4.1.tar.gz

Next step is compiling and installing it;

tar xf bash-4.1.tar.gz
cd bash-4.1*
./configure
make
sudo make install

11 thoughts on “How-to install Bash 4.1 in Linux

  1. Thank YOU! ive been trying to find a step by step on how to install bash and you are the first website to explain it simply

  2. Hi,

    I have followed the steps as mentioned and downloaded the bash folder on my system which is OpenSuse 11.3. The first step of unzipping works fine.

    When I run the rest of the commands as you have mentioned, I get the following error:-

    shashank@linux-2ahz:~/Downloads> ./configure
    bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
    shashank@linux-2ahz:~/Downloads> cd bash-4.1
    shashank@linux-2ahz:~/Downloads/bash-4.1> ./configure
    checking build system type… i686-pc-linux-gnu
    checking host system type… i686-pc-linux-gnu
    checking for emacs… no
    checking for xemacs… no

    Beginning configuration for bash-4.1-release for i686-pc-linux-gnu

    checking for gcc… no
    checking for cc… no
    checking for cl.exe… no
    configure: error: in `/home/shashank/Downloads/bash-4.1′:
    configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
    See `config.log’ for more details.
    shashank@linux-2ahz:~/Downloads/bash-4.1> make
    If ‘make’ is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
    cnf make
    shashank@linux-2ahz:~/Downloads/bash-4.1> sudo make install
    root’s password:
    sudo: make: command not found

    Am I doing anything wrong here ???

    Please help as I am doing this for the first time and not sure what to do…

  3. Thanks from me too! Hits the spot and now i can dabble in bashdb (on ancient CentOS 4.1 which our app is tied to.)

  4. Excellent and EASY instructions to install using TAR BALL instead of RPM (which had too many dependencies failures)…

    Thanks! Works great on SUSE/Redhat box.

  5. Everything is okay, but in compiling and installing step it is missing one line:

    tar xf bash-4.1.tar.gz
    cd bash-4.1.tar.gz <———- this one
    ./configure
    make
    sudo make install

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