Hi. I was reading through the faq on http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/de...compat.en.html under 4.5 How should I install a non-Debian program. And it is a question that will come in handy one day. I know the basic installation procedure for installing from source:

# tar xvzf package.tar.gz
# cd package
# ./configure
# make
# make install

It is this line that I am clueless what to do: After you compile them, place the binaries in /usr/local/bin/, the libraries in /usr/local/lib/, and the configuration files in /usr/local/etc/. The make step creates the binary and the make install step installs the package, but how do I control where the bin, lib, and configuration files install to?

How to do it with not only source files but any non debian package will be great : )

Take a look at checkinstall, stow and alien. Those will cover pretty much anything that isn't a Debian package. Although there really isn't much that isn't in a repo somewhere.

If you do ./configure , with no options, all files are most
often installed to /usr/local/ , which is a good idea :
Easier to trace and remove, unless checkinstall or a similar
tool is used . As said by @ craigevil.
Some app's provide a 'make uninstall' from the source directory.

Install options : please see './configure --help'.

.. And again, the other 25,000 applications :
Please fetch them with # apt-get install <package>.
Or 'synaptic'.
.....