How to compile and install a program from source
Regardless of what system you use or which package manager comes with your distribution, compiling a program from the source code is one option that will work across all platforms. Don't be hesitant to compile software - this is one of Linux and BSD's strong points. You have the ability to compile a program exactly tailored for your machine! In fact, some Linux distros like Gentoo and LFS use compilation as the preferred method of installing software.
One final note before we begin: We're going to use the command line. Don't be afraid of opening up a console window and getting your "hands dirty", so to speak. The Linux shell is one of the most powerful ways to interact with your system and knowing how to use it will benefit you tremendously.
Getting the code
Source code can be packaged in a few different ways. Most commonly it's distributed as a tarball that is either gzipped (.tar.gz) or bzipped (.tar.bz2). So the first thing you have to do is uncompress and extract the sourcecode from the archive. For gzipped files, use this command:
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