[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ian Alexander) wrote: >Hello all. New to Debian, and have a few questions. When installing >software from source: what is the official/suggested way of doing this in >Debian? Obviously, /usr/local is under my control according to the FHS. >But is there a suggested way of handling this on a Debian system? Also, >does it make a difference if there is a dpkg available for said software? >My first thought is to do a "./configure --prefix=/usr/local" but thought >I'd check with you Deb-Gurus first. :)
I'd use /usr/local myself; in fact, under most circumstances I'd use a subdirectory of that and then use stow, which is fantastic for managing a large /usr/local tree. If you've got the source for the software using 'apt-get source' or similar (in which case the source tree will have a debian/ subdirectory), then changing to the top-level directory of the source tree and typing 'debuild' will produce a .deb of that package, which you can then install with dpkg. You'll need at least the devscripts and dpkg-dev packages for this, and possibly others. HTH, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
