OT: A noob (me) informing other noobs about compiling apps ourselfs

Ralf Mardorf ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net
Sat Jan 15 11:21:19 UTC 2011


It's safe to build apps by our self, if we avoid 'make install'. 'Make
love, but make install' (a quote of somebody who wish to be anonymous).

On several Linux running 'checkinstall' will build a package. For Ubuntu
it's possible to use 'dpkg-buildpackage' additionally to 'checkinstall'
to build a package, but not for every app.

Sometimes, e.g. for JACK, this will build just one package, while for
the distro it's separated to several packages, if so, building dummy
packages will avoid trouble. On Ubuntu it's possible to build dummy
packages by running 'equivs'.

A package easily can be removed, resp. restored by the original
package(s). Stuff that's installed by 'make install' not all the times
can be removed easily. There's an option called 'make uninstall', but
perhaps 'make install' has overwritten some dependencies before or added
a new version without overwriting an old version.

E.g. some Linux differ regarding to directories, taking care about
'ldconfig' and /lib, /lib64 etc. shouldn't be an issue, at least when
using a search engine or asking the community.

It's possible to build a kernel by several ways, for Ubuntu they usually
will build packages.

A changing done by a package that break our Linux can be easily
repaired, as long, ass the original packages are available.

So don't fear to compile apps and kernels yourself, but just install
self build stuff by packages. If there should be an issue, you most of
the times can't install a package without the force option, hence
nothing dangerous can happen. If you can't install a package without the
force option, it will inform you about the reason. Perhaps the reason
isn't important and you anyway can install by using the force option and
as the case may be, reinstall a broken package/dependency.




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