I thought was about tar files and missed
the point that you were asking about installing software. I will cover a few
items that you may consider:

First a "tar file" is simply a directory structure containing a number of files.
Tar file will extract the structure where ever you run tar x(for extract) f(for
file) and v(for verbose as this lists the files as they are extracted: tar xfv
myfile.tar.

Second is the "zipped version" with the .gz extension. This is simply a
compressed tar file (keep in mind that a tarred file is not a compressed file).
This is extracted with tar xfvz(unzip): tar xfvz myfile.tar.gz.

You may see an extension like myfile.tar.z and this will need to be unzipped
with the gzip program before it is untarred. Try gunzip myfile.tar.z and then
untar with tar xfv myfile.tar.

Third is the location of installation. You may install in you home directory
with you own user account. If you wish to install in the "linux" directories
such as /opt or /usr you will need to be root and you do this with su root in
most linux systems. Another command is used in Ubuntu.

Fourth is the installation procedure. Assuming you will need to install this
software, a typical scenario is to cd to the directory just created when you
untarred your file. Next look for a file usually called "configure.sh" and run
this with ./configure. Next you will probably need to "make" the program. Look
for a file called "Makefile" and if this is there you can just type in make.
Some software may require other items such as "make install" or "make test" or
whatever as these may vary.

As mentioned in an earlier post, look for the readme.txt file or install.txt
file.