So you've got linux.. now you want some kewl software..

You go to SourceForge or FreshMeat or something

You download the source because all your friends say that
compiling your own binaries gets you a highly optimized system..
plus it makes you 1337 and ub3r and stuff ;p

Now you are proppably stuck with a .tar.gz or a .tar.bz2


in case of a .tar.gz archive you unpack it by typing
tar xzvf filename.tar.gz
in case of a .tar.bz2 archive you unpack it by typing
tar xjvf filename.tar.bz2 or on some obscure systems xIvf (capital i)

you move to the folder cd foldername

there you take a look around by typing
ls

be sure to read the README and INSTALL files.

if you see a file called configure you know what to do..
to configure the source..  you type  
./configure  do not forget the ./ or try
sh configure

the configure script configures the Makefile(s) with the library paths of your distro.
if there are library's missing, it'll tell you (usualy) and you'll need to download them.
the README or INSTALL files usualy tell you which libs the app needs.

if there is no configure file, usualy when downloaded from a cvs, look for something like autogen.sh execute  
./autogen.sh or sh autogen.sh

what the autogen file does, you can do for yourself too, in case there is no such file and no configure file..

aclocal
automake
autoheader
autoconf

and then the
./configure

so the source is configured.. now you'll need to make it..

make

sometimes you run into trouble here..
for example, on slackware the /usr/X11R6 folder houses the libGL and libGLU.
you might need to include the -I/usr/X11R6/include and -L/usr/X11R6/lib directives to the Makefile

if you have lots of memmory you could try to add the -j# tag where the # is how much you'd like to make parrallel.
I usualy do make -j3

now we'll need to install the software..
to do this you need to be superuser..

su

it'll ask you for the root password..

make install

sometimes you'll need to link and cache the shared libraries..
this can be done by typing (also as superuser)
ldconfig

now you might like to drop back to a normal user, type
exit

w000t you just installed a new piece of software !!