Compiling on Kubuntu unstable.

[Derek Broughton]

John Culleton wrote:

> FYI: build-install plus cairo2-dev plus python-dev did the trick. 
> Remember, I am new around here and don't have the streetmap memorized yet.
> 
> For lots of software the "download source and then compile" route is the
> best way to stay close to the current edition. Tarballs are pretty
> universal after all.  

They're really _not_ universal on debian-based systems.  Sure you can always
use them, but they're not the best way to go and you can almost always find
a binary package for whatever you want.  I'm a software developer, but I
still have virtually no applications compiled from source (and the ones I
have are usually compiled from Ubuntu sources - that is, by "apt-get
source" and "dpkg-buildpackage" and not the "./configure;make;make-install"
route).

> Now that I have gcc, make, cmake and build-install I can have the 
> best of both worlds.
 
No.  Now you have the "old world" :-)  The other tool you need if you really
must compile from tarballs is "checkinstall" - then you can integrate your
self-compiled packages with the package management system.  
-- 
derek