Let's say you download a package called sample. Typically, you will be downloading a compresed tar archive, such as sample.tar.gz. First, extract the compressed tar archive. The extracted archive should contain a few files and directories, such as build, configure, makefile, and readme. When building a package from source, a few programs are required, such as GCC+. Install build-essential, to ensure your system has the needed programs.

[root@server1 ~]# apt-get install build-essential

Configure the package. The system will be checked to determine if all of the required dependencies are already installed. If one or more dependency is not installed, configure will halt and list the required dependencies. In this example, the PAM development libraries dependency is not installed. Use apt-get or yum to installed the required dependencies, and then run ./configure again.

[root@server1 ~]# ./configure
. . .
configure: error: PAM development libraries not installed

Once configure completes successfully, use the make command.

[root@server1 ~]# make

After make completes, use the make install command. After make install completes, the package is ready for use.

[root@server1 ~]# make install