On Dec 18, 2007 5:15 PM, Mike Miller wrote:
> ...
> Can I compile in a way that creates a package, then install the package?  That
> would seem to provide the best of both worlds, perhaps at a little extra
> cost in terms of effort during installation.

Take a look at "checkinstall"
(http://www.asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall).   On the rare
occasion when something's not already in the package repository of
your distro of choice, you can usually do the following to install
from source:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo checkinstall

The last command builds a package (the default behavior issues a "make
install" behind the scenes) and, if all went well, installs it.

sm