Posted by LordOfBikes on Nov 03, 2023; 9:07pm
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/native-Linux-starter-on-tarball-build-tp5723791p5723793.html

The clean script is not mentioned in the linked instructions for that reason. It's the intention, that the binary is wiped out with all the other build files. This is a common task in software development.
But the good news, as you surely figured already out, it does not delete any essential files. You can simply built the executable again.

A tarball is just an archive, like zip, it does not contain any OS specific information. Because MacOS is based on Unix like Linux, both OS can handle tarball native.
Of course LibreCAD is built natively on any OS. It is possible to cross compile binary executable for other OS, but it makes the setup more complicated and is not used for LibreCAD.

I have no idea, where your librecad.app comes from, the binary on Linux is named just librecad, without extension.
And on MacOS LibreCAD.app is a folder, containing the executable, dependencies and resource files.

Build from source does not mean install and is just a way, especially on Linux, to get a newer LibreCAD version. Most Linux distributions has conservative rules about updating source code and distribute newer software versions. Thus it often takes too long time until new releases are deployed by packet managers.
But for a while now, we provide AppImage binaries, which run on many Linux distributions. This makes build from source obsolete, if you just want to use a newer LibreCAD version.

As you already managed to build from source, you can simply move the unix folder to a safe place and create a shortcut for the start menu. Build from source does not mean install, this is handled by Linux distributors, because default locations for the installation varies on different distributions and window manager. That's the reason, why there is not a common Linux installer, like we have for Windows or MacOS.