Download, Compile and Install

Windows users usually don't deal with this, you know, compiling.

This is something many people believe linux users do daily, but that would be true only for LFS or similar. In reality, we users utilize a package manager (more on that in my last post).

But what if you want to check the source? Then you have to compile the source they (or a repository) provide.

The hard thing about that is when they just say "use ./configure && make && make install". But they don't (usually) tell about the make dependencies (bless LFS and Arch).

Sometimes you want to build for size (reducing it) and some sources provide compression and/or byte optimization (the kernel does, so does busybox), but many just assume you have unlimited storage (and don't account for embedded devices or similar).

But what if the worst happens...

You can't compile it for many reasons, be it you don't have certain dependency or a certain version of a program, or there is an obscure setting the creator has enabled, but thinks is unnecesary for the build process.

Well, this has happened to me ever since I went to other packages. At least I can copy from a (un)stable source I know of untill I get how to compile some packages.

Happy compiling!