kinda newbie question

[David Gibson]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 03:29:45PM +1100, Sam Couter wrote:
> Kim Holburn <kim.holburn at anu.edu.au> wrote:
> > Are you suggesting that we give up everything that doesn't come pre-compiled from a distributor? 
> 
> Use Debian. With over 8000 packages, there's not much that isn't
> packaged already.
> 
> But seriously, I'm not really suggesting that. As Damian (?) mentioned
> there are tools which can help manage third-party software. GNU Stow is
> one example I can think of:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/stow.html

Often the simplest way is just to stash the thing you're compiling in
it's own directory.  So for package foobaz do:
     ./configure --prefix=/opt/foobaz
     make
     make install

and to uninstall
    rm -rf /opt/foobaz

-- 
David Gibson			| For every complex problem there is a
david at gibson.dropbear.id.au	| solution which is simple, neat and
				| wrong.  -- H.L. Mencken
http://www.ozlabs.org/people/dgibson