On Mon, 2012-04-02 at 19:50 -0700, Dave Crossland wrote: > On 2 April 2012 18:43, Daniel Martin <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'd like to be able to > > _easily_ install source code in a predictable location, modify the code, > > recompile and install the new package. > > The Debian project developed an Advanced Package Tool, 'apt.' On one > of the many unofficial GNU distribution managed with apt, you can do > this: > > $ apt-get build-dep $PROGRAM; > $ apt-get source $PROGRAM; > $ cd PROGRAM/; > $ ./configure; > $ make; > $ make install; > > What is not easy about this? :-)
Well, for a start I reckon it would be possible to shorten that down from 6 commands. Plus, a lot of binary packages are built with specialised arguments passed to ./configure if I want to rebuild after making some small changes how am I to know the arguments to pass? As I'm not so familiar with Debian and apt, could you please show me how one would go about uninstalling the package after following the steps that you list? i.e. Can it be done through apt? Or, (as I suspect) do those commands simply install the software outside of the package management system, requiring the user to use make uninstall (assuming such functionality has been provided in the makefile). If the package is outside the package management system then I don't feel that is good enough. - The user is open to conflicts if he accidentally installs the package through apt, uninstalling is difficult, and he cannot easily share a binary package with his friends. (I'm not vary familiar with Gentoo perhaps it provides the sort of functionality I'm referring to...) dacm.
